99 
D1C86 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


D 


^ 


DEDICATION. 


TO  NELLIE, 

(MY  WIFE) 

Who,  for  forty  years  has  been  my  faithful  companion 
in  the  toils  and  triumphs  of  missionary  service  for  the 
Freedmen  of  the  Old  Southwest  and  the  heroic  pion- 
eers of  the  New  Northwest,  this  volume  is  affection- 
ately inscribed. 

By  the  Author, 

R.  J.  CRESWELL. 


INTRODUCTION 

By  the  Rev.  David  R.  Breed,  D.D. 

The  sketches -which  make  up  this  little  volume  are 
of  absorbing  interest,  and  are  prepared  by  one  who 
is  abundantly  qualified  to  do  so.  Mr.  Creswell  has 
had  large  personal  acquaintance  with  many  of  those 
of  whom  he  writes  and  has  for  years  been  a  diligent 
student  of  missionary  effort  among-  the  Sioux.  His 
frequent  contributions  to  the  periodicals  on  this  sub- 
ject have  received  marked  attention.  Several  of  them 
he  gathers  together  and  reprints  in  this  volume,  so  that 
while  it  is  not  a  consecutive  history  of  the  Sioux 
missions  it  furnishes  an  admirable  survey  of  the  labors 
of  the  heroic  men  and  women  who  have  spent  their 
lives  in  this  cause,  and  furnishes  even  more  interesting 
reading  in  their  biographies  that  might  have  been  giv- 
en upon  the  other  plan. 

During  my  own  ministry  in  Minnesota,  from  1870 
to  1885,  I  became  very  intimate  with  the  great  lead- 
ers of  whom  Mr.  Creswell  writes.  Some  of  them  were 
often  in  my  home,  and  I,  in  turn,  have  visited  them. 
[  am  familiar  with  many  of  the  scenes  described  in 
this  book.  I  have  heard  from  the  missionaries'  own 
lips  the  stories  of  their  hardships,  trials  and  successes. 
t  have  listened  to  their  account  of  the  great  massacre, 
while  with  the  tears  flowing  down  their  cheeks  they 
told  of  the  desperate  cruelty  of  the  savages,  their  de- 
feat, their  conversion,  and  their  subsequent  fidelity  tc 
the  men  and  the  cause  they  once  opposed.  I  am  grate- 
ful to  Mr.  Creswell  for  putting  these  facts  into  per- 
manent shape  and  bespeak  for  his  volume  a  cordial  re- 
ception, a  wide  circulation,  and  above  all,  the  abundant 
blessing  of  God. 

DAVID  R.  BREED. 

Allegheny,  Pa.,  January,  1906. 


PREFACE. 

This  volume  is  not  sent  forth  as  a  full  history  of 
the  Sioux  Missions.  That  volume  has  not  yet  been 
written,  and  probably  never  will  be. 

The  pioneer  missionaries  were  too  busily  engaged 
in  the  formation  of  the  Dakota  Dictionary  and  Gram- 
mar, in  the  translation  of  the  Bible  into  that  wild, 
barbaric  tongue;  in  the  preparation  of  hymn  books 
and  text  books : — in  the  creation  of  a  literature  for  the 
Sioux  Nation,  to  spend  time  in  ordinary  literary  work. 
The  present  missionaries  are  overwhelmed  with  the 
great  work  of  ingathering  and  upbuilding  that  has 
come  to  them  so  rapidly  all  over  the  widely  extended 
Dakota  plains.  These  Sioux  missionaries  were  and 
are  men  of  deeds  rather  than  of  words, — more  intent 
on  the  making  of  history  than  the  recording  of  it. 
They  are  the  noblest  body  of  men  and  women  that 
ever  yet  went  forth  to  do  service,  for  our  Great  King, 
on  American  soil. 

For  twenty  years  it  has  been  the  writer's  privilege 
to  mingle  intimately  with  these  missionaries  and  with 
the  Christian  Sioux ;  to  sit  wyith  them  at  their  great 
council  fires ;  to  talk  with  them  in  their  teepees ;  to  visit 
them  in  their  homes ;  to  meet  with  them  in  their 
Church  Courts ;  to  inspect  their  schools ;  to  worship 
with  them  in  their  churches ;  and  to  gather  with  them 
on  the  greensward  under  the  matchless  Dakota  sky 
and  celebrate  together  with  them  the  sweet,  sacremen- 
tal  service  of  our  Lord  and  Savior,  Jesus  the  Christ. 

He  w^as  so  filled  and  impressed  by  what  he  there 
saw  and  heard,  that  he  felt  impelled  to  impart  to  oth- 
ers somewhat  of  the  knowledge  thus  gained;  in  order 
that  they  may  be  stimulated  to  a  deeper  interest  in, 
and  devotion  to  the  cause  of  missions  on  American  soil. 


PREFACE. 

In  the  compilation  of  this  work  the  author  has 
drawn  freely  from  these  publications,  viz. : 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  DAKOTAS, 
MARY  AND  I, 

By  Stephen  R.  Riggs,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

Two  VOLUNTEER  MISSIONARIES By  S.  W.  Pond,  Jr. 

INDIAN  BOYHOOD By  Charles  Eastman 

THE  PAST  MADE  PRESENT, 

By  Rev.  William  Fiske  Brown 
THE  WORD  CARRIER By  Editor  A.  L.  Riggs,  D.  D. 

THE  MARTYRS  OF  WALHALLA, 

By  Charlotte  O.  Van  Cleve 

THE  LONG  AGO By  Charles  H.  Lee 

THE  DAKOTA  MISSION, 

By  Dr.  L.  P.  Williamson  and  others 

DR.  T.  S.  WILLIAMSON By  Rev.  R.  McQuesten 

He  makes  this  general  acknowledgment,  in  lieu  of 
repeated  references,  which  would  otherwise  be  neces- 
sary throughout  the  book.  For  valuable  assistance  in 
its  preparation  he  is  very  grateful  to  many  mission- 
aries, especially  to  John  P.  Williamson,  D.D.,  of  Gren- 
wood,  South  Dakota ;  A.  L.  Riggs,  D.  D.  of  Santee, 
Nebraska;  Samuel  W.  Pond,  Jr.,  of  Minneapolis,  and 
Mrs.  Gideon  H.  Pond,  of  Oak  Grove,  Minnesota.  All 
these  were  sharers  in  the  stirring  scenes  recorded  in 
these  pages.  The  names  Dakota  and  Sioux  are  used 
as  synonyms  and  the  English  significance  instead  of 
the  Indian  cognomens. 

May  the  blessing  cf  Him  who  dwelt  in  the  Burning 
Bush,  rest  upon  all  these  toilers  on  the  prairies  of  the 
new  Northwest. 

R.  J.  CRESWELL. 

Minneapolis,  Minnesota,  January,  1906. 


PARTI. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Pond  Brothers. — Great  Revival.- Con  versions. — Galena. — 
Rum-seiler  Decision. — Westward. — Fort  Snelling. — Man 
of-the-Sky. — Log  Cabin. — Dr.  Williamson. — Ripley. — Lane 
Seminary. — St.  Peters  Church. — Dr.  Riggs. — New  England 
Mary. — Lac-qui-Parle. 

CHAPTER    II. 

The  Lake-that- Speaks. — Indian  Church. — Adobe  Edifice. — 
First  School. — Mission  Home. — Encouragements. — Discour- 
agements.— Kaposia. — New  Treaty. — Yellow  Medicine. — Bit- 
ter Winter. — Hazlewood. — Traverse  des  Sioux. — Robert 
Hopkins. — Marriage. — Death. — M.  N.  Adams,  Oak  Grove, — 
J.  P.  Wiiriamson,  D.  D. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Isolation. — Strenuous  Life. — Formation  of  Dakota  Language. 
Dictionary.-— Grammar.— -dterature. — Bible  Translation.  — 
Massacre. — Fleeing  Missionaries. — Blood. — Anglo  Sax- 
ens  Triumph. — Loyal  Indians. — Monument. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Prisoners  in  Chains. — Executions. — Pentecost  in  Prison. — 
Three  Hundred  Baptisms. — Church  Organized. — Sacramen- 
tal Supper. — Prison  Camp. — John  P.  Williamson. — One 
Hundred  Converts. — Davenport. — Release. — Niobrara. — Pil- 
grim Church. 

CHAPTER  V. 

1884  — lyakaptapte. — Council. — Discussions. — Anniversaries. — 
— Sabbath. — Communion. — The  Native  Missionary  Society. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

1905  —  Sisseton. — John  Baptiste  Renville. — Presbytery  of  Da- 
kota. 


AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

PART  ONE. 

SOWING  AND  REAPING. 


__  ..--,->  - 


FORT   SHELLING, 


They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy. 
He  that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth.  bearing 

Precious  Seed, 
Shall  doubtless  come  again 
With  rejoicing, 
Bringing  his  sheaves. 

Psalm  126 


Chapter  I 

Now  appear  the  flow'rets  fair 
Beautiful  beyond  compare 
And  all  nature  seems  to  say, 
"Welcome,  welcome,  blooming  May." 

It  was  1834.  A  lovely  day — the  opening  of  the 
merry  month  of  May! 

The  Warrior,  a  Mississippi  steamer,  glided  out  of 
Fever  River,  at  Galena,  Illinois,  and  turned  its  prow 
up  the  Mississippi.  Its  destination  was  the  mouth  of 
the  St.  Peters — now  Minnesota  River — five  hundred 
miles  to  the  north — the  port  of  entry  to  the  then  un- 
known land  of  the  Upper  Mississippi. 

The  passengers  formed  a  motley  group;  officerSj 
soldiers,  fur-traders,  adventurers,  and  two  young  men 
from  New  England.  These  latter  were  two  brothers, 
Samuel  William  and  Gideon  Hollister  Pond,  from 
Washington,  Connecticut.  At  this  time,  Samuel  the 
elder  of  the  two,  was  twenty-six  years  of  age  and  in 
form,  tall  and  very  slender  as  he  continued  through 
life.  Gideon,  the  younger  and  more  robust  brother 
was  not  quite  twenty-four,  more  than  six  feet  in 
height,  strong  and  active,  a  specimen  of  well  devel- 
oped manhood.  With  their  clear  blue  eyes,  and  their 
tall,  fully  developed  forms,  they  must  have  attracted 
marked  attention  even  among  that  band  of  brawny 
frontiersmen. 

In  1831  a  gracious  revival  had  occurred  in  their  na- 


2  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

tive  village  of  Washington.  It  was  so  marked  in  its 
character,  and  permanent  in  its  results,  that  it  formed 
an  epoch  in  the  history  of  that  region  and  is  still  spok- 
en of  as  "the  great  revival''.  For  months,  during  the 
busiest  season  of  the  year,  crowded  sunrise  prayer- 
meetings  were  held  daily  and  were  well  attended  by 
an  agricultural  population,  busily  engaged  every  day 
in  the  pressing  toil  of  the  harvest  and  the  hay  fields. 
Scores  were  converted  and  enrolled  themselves  as  sol- 
diers of  the  cross. 

Among  these  were  the  two  Pond  brothers.  This 
was,  in  reality  with  them,  the  beginning  of  a  new  life. 
From  this  point  in  their  lives,  the  inspiring  motive, 
with  both  these  brothers,  was  a  spirit  of  intense  loy- 
alty to  their  new  Master  and  a  burning  love  for  the 
souls  of  their  fellowmen.  Picked  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
out  of  more  than  one  hundred  converts  for  special 
service  for  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Pond  brothers 
resolutely  determined  to  choose  a  field  of  very  hard 
service,  one  to  which  no  others  desired  to  go.  In  the 
search  for  such  a  field,  Samuel  the  elder  brother,  jour- 
neyed from  New  Haven  to  Galena,  Illinois,  and  spent 
the  autumn  and  winter  of  1833-34  in  his  explorations. 
He  visited  Giicago,  then  a  struggling  village  of  a  few 
hundred  inhabitants  and  other  embryo  towns  and  cities. 
He  also  saw  the  Winnebago  Indians  and  the  Potta- 
watomies,  but  he  was  not  led  to  choose  a  field  of  labor 
amongst  any  of  these. 

A  strange  Providence  finally  pointed  the  way  to 
Mr.  Pond.  In  his  efforts  to  reform  a  rumseller  at 
Galena,  he  gained  much  information  concerning  the 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  3 

Sioux  Indians,  whose  territory  the  rumseller  had 
traversed  on  his  way  from  the  Red  River  country 
from  which  he  had  come  quite  recently.  He  repre- 
sented the  Sioux  Indians  as  vile,  degraded,  ignorant, 
superstitious  and  wholly  given  up  to  evil. 

"There,"  said  the  rumseller,  "is  a  people  for  whose 
souls  nobody  cares.  They  are  utterly  destitute  of  mor- 
al and  religious  teachings.  No  efforts  have  ever  been 
made  by  Protestants  for  their  salvation.  If  you  fel- 
lows are  looking,  in  earnest,  for  a  hard  job,  there  is 
one  ready  for  you  to  tackle  on  those  bleak  prairies." 

This  man's  description  of  the  terrible  condition  of 
the  Sioux  Indians  in  those  times  was  fairly  accurate. 
Those  wild,  roving  and  utterly  neglected  Indians 
were  proper  subjects  for  Christian  effort)  and  prom- 
ised to  furnish  the  opportunities  for  self-denying  and 
self-sacrificing  labors  for  which  the  brothers  were 
seeking. 

Mr.  Pond  at  once  recognized  this  peculiar  call  as 
from  God.  After  prayerful  deliberation,  Samuel  de- 
termined to  write  to  his  brother  Gideon,  inviting  the 
latter  to  jcin  him  early  the  following  spring,  and  un- 
dertake with  him  an  independent  mission  to  the  Sioux. 

He  wrote  to  Gideon : — "I  have  finally  found  the 
field  of  service  for  which  we  have  long  been  seek- 
ing. It  lies  in  the  regions  round  about  Fort  Snelling. 
It  is  among  the  savage  Sioux  of  those  far  northern 
plains.  They  are  an  ignorant,  savage  and  degraded 
people.  It  is  said  to  be  a  very,  cold,  dreary,  storm- 
swept  region.  But  we  are  not  seeking  a  soft  spot  to 
rest  in  or  easv  service.  So  come  on." 


4  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Despite  strong-,  almost  bitter  opposition  from  friends 
and  kinsmen,  Gideon  accepted  and  began  his  prepara- 
tions for  life  among  the  Indians,  and  in  March,  1834, 
he  bade  farewell  to  his  friends  and  kindred  and  began 
his  journey  westward. 

Early  in  April,  he  arrived  at  Galena,  equipped  for 
their  strange,  Heaven-inspired  mission.  He  found  his 
brother  firmly  fixed  in  his  resolution  to  carry  out  the 
plans  already  decided  upon.  In  a  few  days  we  find 
them  on  the  steamer's  deck,  moving  steadily  up  the 
mighty  father  of  waters,  towards  their  destination. 
"This  is  a  serious  undertaking,"  remarked  the  younger 
brother  as  they  steamed  northward.  And  such  it  was. 
There  was  in  it  no  element  of  attractiveness  from  a 
human  view-point. 

They  expected  to  go  among  roving  tribes,  to  have 
no  permanent  abiding  place  and  to  subsist  as  those 
wild  and  savage  tribes  subsisted.  Their  plan  was  a 
simple  and  feasible  one,  as  they  proved  by  experience, 
but  one  which  required  large  stores  of  faith  and  for- 
titude every  step  of  the  way.  They  knew,  also,  that 
outside  of  a  narrow  circle  of  personal  friends,  none 
knew  anything  of  this  mission  to  the  Sioux,  or  felt 
the  slightest  interest  in  its  success  or  failure.  But 
undismayed  they  pressed  on. 

The  scenery  of  the  Upper  Mississippi  is  still  pleas- 
ing to  those  eyes,  which  behold  it,  clothed  in  its  spring- 
time robes  of  beauty.  In  1834,  this  scenery  shone 
forth  in  all  the  primeval  glory  of  "nature  unmarred  by 
the  hand  of  man.'' 

As  the  steamer  Warrior  moved  steadilv  on  its  wav 


SAMUEL  W.  POND, 
20  Years  a  Missionary  to  the  Sioux. 


GIDEON  H.  POND, 
For  Twenty  years  Missionary  to  the  Dakotas. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  5 

up  the  Mississippi,  the  rich  May  verdure,  through 
which  they  passed,  appeared  strikingly  beautiful  to 
the  two  brothers,  who  then  beheld  it  for  the  first  time. 
It  was  a  most  delightful  journey  and  ended  on  the 
sixth  day  of  May,  at  the  dock  at  old  Fort  Snelling. 

This  was  then  our  extreme  outpost  of  frontier  civ- 
ilization. It  had  been  established  in  1819,  as  our  front- 
guard  against  the  British  and  Indians  of  the  North- 
west. It  was  located  on  the  high  plateau,  lying  be- 
tween the  Mississippi  and  the  Minnesota  (St.  Peters) 
rivers,  and  it  was  then  the  only  important  place  within 
the  limits  of  the  present  state  of  Minnesota. 

While  still  on  board  the  Warrior,  the  brothers  re- 
ceived a  visit  and  a  warm  welcome  from  the  Rev.  Will- 
iam T.  Boutell,  a  missionary  of  the  American  Board 
to  the  Ojibways  at  Leach  Lake,  Minnesota.  He 
•was  greatly  rejoiced  to  meet  "these  dear  breth- 
ren, who,  from  love  to  Christ  and  for  the  poor  red 
man,  had  come  alone  to  this  long-neglected  field." 

A  little  la;ter  they  stepped  ashore,  found  themselves 
in  savage  environments  and  face  to  face  with  the  grave 
problems  they  had  come  so  far  to  solve.  They  were 
men  extremely  well  fitted,  mentally  and  physically,  nat- 
urally and  by  training  for  the,  toils  and  privations  of 
the  life  upon  which  they  had  now  entered.  Sent,  not 
by  man  but  by  the  Lord ;  appointed,  not  by  any  human 
authority  but  by  the  great  Jehovah ;  without  salary  or 
any  prospects  of  worldly  emoluments,  unknown,  un- 
heralded, those  humble  but  heroic  men  began,  in  dead 
earnest,  their  grand  life-work.  Their  mission  and 
commission  was  to  conquer  that  savage  tribe  of  fierce, 


6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

prairie  warriors,  by  the  two-edged  sword  of  the  spirit 
of  the  living  God  and  to  mold  them  aright,  by  the 
power  of  the  Gospel  of  His  Son.  And  God  was  with 
them  as  they  took  up  their  weapons  (not  carnal  but 
spiritual)  in  this  glorious  warfare. 

They  speedily  found  favor  with  the  military  au- 
thorities, and  with  one  of  the  most  prominent  chieftains 
of  that  time  and  region — Cloudman  or  Man-of-the-sky. 

The  former  gave  them  full  authority  to  prosecute 
their  mission  among  the  Indians ;  (the  latter  cordially 
invited  them  to  establish  their  residence  at  his  village 
on  the  shore  of  Lake  Calhoun. 

The  present  site  of  Minneapolis  was  then  simply  a 
vast,  wind-swept  prairie,  uninhabited  by  white  men. 
A  single  soldier  on  guard  at  the  old  government  saw- 
mill at  St.  Anthony  Falls  was  the  only  representative 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  where  now  dwell  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  white  men  of  various  nationalities. 

Busy,  bustling,  beautiful  Minneapolis,  with  its  ele- 
gant homes ;  its  commodious  churches ;  its  great  Uni- 
versity— with  its  four  thousand  students — ;  its  well- 
equipped  schools — with  their  forty-two  thousand  pu- 
pils— ;  its  great  business  blocks ;  its  massive  mills ;  its 
humming  factories;  its  broad  avenues;  its  pleasant 
parks ;  its  population  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  souls ; 
all  this  had  not  then  even  been  as  much  as  dreamed  of. 

Four  miles  west  of  St.  Anthony  Falls,  lies  Lake 
Calhoun,  and  a  short  distance  to  the  south  is  Lake 
Harriet,  (two  most  beautiful  sheets  of  water,  both 
within  the  present  limits  of  Minneapolis).  The  inter- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  7 

vening  space  was  covered  by  a  grove  of  majestic  oaks. 

Here,  in  1834,  was  an  Indian  village  of  five  hun- 
dred Sioux.  Their  habitations  were  teepees,  made  of 
tamarack  bark  or  of  skins  of  wild  beasts.  Their  burial 
ground  covered  a  part  of  lovely  Lakewood,  the  favorite 
cemetery  of  the  city  of  Minneapolis.  This  band  recog- 
nized Cloudman  or  Man-of-the-sky  as  their  chief, 
\vhom  they  both,  respected  and  loved.  He  was  then 
about  forty  years  of  age.  He  was  an  intelligent  man, 
of  an  amiable  disposition  and  friendly  to  the  approach 
of  Civilization.  Here,  under  the  auspices  of  this  fam- 
ous chieftain,  they  erected  for  themselves  a  snug,  little 
home,  near  the  junction  of  Thirty-fifth  street  and  Ir- 
ving Avenue  South,  Minneapolis. 

I(t  was  built  of  large  oak  logs.  The  dimensions 
were  twelve  feet  by  sixteen  and  eight  feet  high. 
Straight  tamarack  poles  formed  the  timbers  of  the 
roof.  The  roof  itself  was  the  bark  of  trees,  fastened 
with  strings  of  the  inner  bark  of  the  basswood. 

A  partition  of  small  logs  divided  the  house  into 
two  rooms.  The  ceiling  was  of  slabs  from  the  old 
government  sawmill  at  St.  Anthony  Falls.  The  door 
was  made  of  boards,  split  from  a  tree  with  an  axe, 
and  had  wooden  hinges  and  fastenings  and  was  locked 
by  pulling  in  the  latch-string.  The  single  window 
was  the  gift  of  the  kind-hearted  Major  Taliaferro,  the 
United  States  Indian  agent  at  Fort  Snelling.  The 
cash  cost  of  the  whole  was  one  shilling,  New  York 
currency,  for  nails,  used  about  the  door.  The  formal 
opening  was  the  reading  of  a  portion  of  Scripture  and 
prayer.  The  banquet  consisted  of  mussels  from  the 


8  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Lake,  flour  and  water.  This  cabin  was  the  first  house 
erected  within  the  present  limits  of  Minneapolis;  it 
was  the  home  of  the  first  citizen  settlers  of  Minnesota 
and  was  the  first  house  used  as  a  school-room  and  for 
divine  worship  in  the  state.  It  was  a  noble  testimony 
to  the  faith,  zeal  and  courage  of  its  builders.  Here 
these  consecrated  brothers  inaugurated  their  great 
work.  In  1839  it  was  torn  down  for  materials  with 
which  to  construct  breastworks  for  the  defense  of  the 
Sioux,  after  the  bloody  battle  of  Rum  River,  against 
their  feudal  foes,  the  Ojibways.  Here  amid  such  love- 
ly natural  surroundings  were  the  very  beginnings  of 
this  mighty  enterprise. 

The  first  lesson  was  given  early  in  May,  by  Samua 
Pond  to  Big  Thunder  chieftain  of  the  Kaposia  band, 
whose  teepees  were  scattered  over  the  bluffs,  where 
now  stands  the  city  of  St.  Paul.  His  chief  soldier 
was  Big  Iron.  His  son  was  Little  Crow,  who  became 
famous  or  rather  infamous,  as  the  leader  against  the 
whites  in  the  terrible  tragedy  of  '62.  Later  in  May 
the  second  lesson  was  taught  by  Gideon  Pond  to  mem- 
bers of  the  Lake  Calhoun  band.  Both  lessons  were 
in  the  useful  and  civilizing  art  of  plowing  and  were 
the  first  in  that  grand  series  of  lessons,  covering  more 
than  seventy  years,  and  by  which  the  Sioux  nation 
have  been  lifted  from  savagery  to  civilization. 

While  God  was  preparing  the  Pond  brothers  in  the 
hill  country  of  Connecticut  for  their  peculiar  life- 
work,  and  opening  up,  the  way  for  them  to  engage  in 
it,  He  also  had  in  training  in  the  school  of  His  Provi- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  9 

dences,  in  Massachusetts  and  Ohio,  fitting  helpers  for 
them  in  this  great  enterprise.  In  the  early  3o's,  at 
Ripley,  Ohio,  Dr.  Thomas  S.  Williamson  and  Mrs. 
Margaret  Poage  Williamson,  a  young  husband  and 
wife,  were  most  happily  located,  in  the  practice  of  his 
profession  and  in  the  upbuilding  of  a  happy  Christian 
home.  To  this  young  couple  the  future  seemed  full 
of  promise  and  permanent  prosperity.  Children  were 
born  to  them ;  they  were  prosperous  and  an  honorable 
name  was  being  secured  through  the  faithful  discharge 
of  the  duties  of  his  most  noble  profession  and  of 
Christian  citizenship.  They  regarded  themselves  as 
happily  located  for  life. 

The  mission  call  to  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Williamson  was 
emphasized  by  the  messenger  of  death.  When  the 
missionary  call  first  came  to  them,  they  excused  them- 
selves on  account  of  their  children.  God  removed  the 
seeming  obstacles,  one  by  one.  The  little  ones  were 
called  to  the  arms  of  Jesus.  "A  great  trial !"  A  great 
blessing  also.  The  way  was  thus  cleared  from  a;  life 
of  luxury  and  ease  in  Ohio  to  one  of  great  denial 
and  self  sacrifice  on  mission  fields.  The  bereaved  par- 
ents recognized  this  call  as  from  God,  and  by  faith, 
both  father  and  mother  were  enabled  to  say,  "Here 
are  we;  send  us." 

"This  decision,"  says  an  intimate  friend,  "neither 
of  them  after  for  one  moment  regretted ;  neither  did 
they  doubt  that  they  were  called  of  God  to  this  great 
work,  nor  did  they  fear  that  their  life-work  would 
prove  a  failure,"  With  characteristic  devotion  and 
energy.  Dr.  Williamson  put  aside  a  lucrative  practice, 


io  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

and  at  once,  entered  on  a  course  of  preparation  for  his 
new  work  for  which  his  previous  life  and  training  had 
already  given  him  great  fitness. 

In  1833,  he  put  himself  under  the  care  of  the  Pres- 
bytery of  Chillicothe,  removed  with  his  family  to  Wal- 
nut Hills,  Cincinnati,  and  entered  Lane  Seminary. 
While  the  Pond  brothers  in  their  log  cabin  at  Lake 
Calhoun  were  studying  the  Sioux  language,  Dr.  Will- 
iamson was  completing  his  theological  course  on  the 
banks  of  the  beautiful  river.  He  was  ordained  to  the 
office  of  the  gospel  ministry  in  1834.  And  in  May, 
1835,  he  landed  at  Fort  Snelling  with  another  band  of 
missionaries.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  quiet,  love- 
ly, faithful  wife,  Margaret,  and  one  child,  his  wife's 
sister,  Sarah  Poage,  afterwards  Mrs.  Gideon  H.  Pond, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Alexander  G.  Huggins  and  two  chil- 
dren. Mr.  Huggins  came  as  a  teacher  and  farmer. 
During  a  stay  of  a  few  weeks  here,  Dr.  Williamson 
presided  at  the  organization  of  the  first  Protestant  con- 
gregation in  Minnesota,  which  was  called  the  Presby- 
terian church  of  St.  Peters.  It  consisted  of  officers, 
soldiers,  fur-traders,  and  members  of  the  mission  fam- 
ilies— twenty-one  in  all ;  seven  of  whom  were  received 
en  confession  of  faith.  It  was  organized  at  Fort  Snel- 
ling, June  n,  1835,  and  still  exists  as  the  First  Pres- 
byterian church  of  Minneapolis,  with  more  than  five- 
hundred  members. 

Early  in  July,  Dr.  Williamson  pushed  on  in  the  face 
of  grave  difficulties,  two  hundred  miles  to  the  west, 
to  the  shores  of  Lac-qui-Parle,  the  Lake-that-speaks. 
Here  they  were  cordially  welcomed  by  Joseph  Ren- 


The  Old  Fort  Snelling  Church  Developed. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  11 

ville,  that  famous  Brois  Brule  trader,  the  half-breed 
chief  who  ruled  that  region  for  many  years,  by  force 
of  his  superior  education  and  native  abilities,  and  who 
ever  was  a  strong1  and  faithful  friend-of  the  missionar- 
ies. He  gave  them  a  temporary  home  and  was  help- 
ful in  many  ways.  Well  did  the  Lord  repay  him  for 
his  kindness  to  His  servants.  His  wife  became  the 
first  full-blood  Sioux  convert  to  the  Christian  faith, 
and  his  youngest  son,  John  Baptiste  Renville,  then  a 
little  lad,  became  the  first  native  Presbyterian  minis- 
ter, one  of  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  his  people. 

June,  1837,  another  pair  of  noble  ones  joined  the 
ranks  of  the  workers  by  the  Lakeside.  These  were 
the  Rev.  S.tephen  Return  Riggs  and  his  sweet  New 
England  Mary.  Pie  was  a  native  of  the  beautiful  val- 
ley of  the  Ohio;  she  was  born  amid  the  green  hills 
of  Massachusetts.  His  father  was  a  Presbyterian  el- 
der of  Steubenville,  Ohio;  her  mother  was  a  daughter 
of  New  England.  She  herself  was  a  pupil  of  the  cul- 
tured and  sainted  Mary  Lyon  of  Mount  Holyoke. 

They  were  indeed  choice  spirits,  well-fitted  by  na- 
ture and  by  training  for  a  place  in  that  heroic  band, 
which  God  was  then  gathering  together  on  the  shores 
of  Lakes  Calhoun  and  Harriet  and  Lac-qui-Parle,  for 
the  conquest  of  the  fiercest  tribe  of  prairie  warriors 
that  ever  roamed  over  the  beautiful  plains  of  the  New 
Northwest.  He  was  a  scholar  and  a  linguist;  courag- 
eous, energetic,  firm,  diplomatic ;  she  was  cultured, 
gentle,  tactful,  and  withal,  both  were  intensely  spirit- 
ual and  deeply  devoted  to  the  glorious  work  of  soul- 
winninsr.  Both  had  been  trained  as  missionaries,  with 


12  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

China  as  a ( prospective  field  of  service.  Step  by  step 
in  the  Providence  of  God,  they  were  drawn  together 
as  life  companions  and  then  turned  from  the  Orient 
to  the  Western  plains. 

During-  these  years  of  beginnings,  Dr.  Williamson 
formed  the  acquaintance  of  Stephen  R.  Riggs,  then  a 
young  man,  which  culminated  in  a  life-long  alliance  of 
love  and  service.  During  his  seminary  course,  Mr. 
Riggs  received  a  letter  from  his  missionary  friend,  to 
which  he  afterwards  referred  thus :  "It  seems  "to  me 
now,  strange  that  he  should  have  indicated  in  that  let- 
ter the  possible  line  of  work  open  to  me,  which  has 
been  so  closely  followed.  I  remember  especially  the 
prominence  he  gave  to  the  thought  that  the  Bible 
should  be  translated  into  the  language  of  the  Dakotas. 
Men  do  sometimes  yet  write  as  they  were  moved  by 
the  Holy  Ghost.  That  letter  decided  my  going  west- 
ward rather  than  to  China."  It  was  a  lovely  day,  the 
first  of  June,  when  this  young  bride  and  groom  ar- 
rived at  Fort  Snelling.  Though  it  was  their  honey- 
moon, they  did  not  linger  long  in  the  romantic  haunts 
cf  Minnehaha  and  the  Lakes;  but  pressed  on  to  Lac- 
qui-Parle  and  joined  hands  with  the  toilers  there  in 
their  mighty  work  of  laying  foundations  broad  and 
deep  in  the  wilderness,  like  the  coral  workers  in  the 
ocean  depths,  out  of  sight  of  man. 

What  a  glorious  trio  of  mission  family  bands  were 
then  gathered  on  Minnesota's  lovely  plains,  on  the 
shores  of  those  beautiful  lakes  !  Pond,  Williamson, 
Riggs.  Names  that  will  never  be  forgotten  while  a 
Sioux  Christian  exists  in  earth  or  glory. 


w 

s 

HI 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  13 

When  the  American  TVIission  Hall  of  Fame  shall  be 
erected  these  three  names  will  shine  out  high  upon 
the  dome  like  "apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver," 
Pond,  Williamson,  Riggs.  ''And  a  book  of  remem- 
brance was  written  before  him  for  them  that  feared 
the  Lord  and  that  thought  upon  his  name.  *  *  *  And 
they  shall  be  mine,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  in  that  day 
when  I  make  up  my  jewels." 


Chapter  II. 

Iii  1836,  within  one  year  from  the  arrival  of  Dr. 
Williamson  and  his  missionary  party  at  Lac-qui-Parle, 
a  church  was  organized,  with  six  native  members, 
which  in  1837,  consisted  of  seven  Dakotas,  besides 
half-breeds  and  whites,  and,  within  five  years,  had  en- 
rolled forty-nine  native  communicants.  Of  this  con- 
gregation Alexander  G.  Muggins  and  Joseph  Renvjlle 
were  the  ruling  elders. 

An  adobe  church  edifice  was  erected  in  1841,  which 
for  eighteen  years  met  the  wants  of  this  people.  In 
its  belfry  was  hung  the  first  church  bell  that  ever  rang 
out  over  the  prairies  of  Minnesota,  the  sweet  call  to 
the  worship  of  the  Savior  of  the  human  race.  The 
services  of  the  church  were  usually  held  in  the  native 
language.  The  hymns  were  sung  to  French  tunes, 
which  were  then  the  most  popular.  Ait  the  beginning, 
translations  from  the  French  of  a  portion  of  Scripture 
were  read  and  some  explanatory  remarks  were  made 
by  Joseph  Renville. 

The  first  school  for  teaching  Indians  to  read  and 
write  in  the  Dakota  language,  was  opened  in  Decem- 
ber, 1835,  at  I-ac-qui-Parle,  in  a  conical  Dakota  tent, 
twenty  feet  in  height  and  the  same  in  diameter.  At 
first  the  men  objected  to  being  taught  for  various  friv- 
olous reasons,  but  they  were  persuaded  to  make  the 
effort.  The  school  apparatus  was  primitive  and  main- 
ly extemporized  on  the  spot.  Progress  was  slow ;  the 


tx 
iri 

00 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  15 

attendance  small  and  irregular,  but  in  the  course  of 
three  months,  they  were  able  to  write  to  each  other 
on  birch  bark.  Those  who  learned  to  read  and  write 
the  language  properly,  soon  becam'e  interested  in  the 
gospel.  The  first  five  men,  who  were  gathered  into 
the  church,  -vere  pupils  of  this  first  school.  Of  the 
next  twenty,  three  were  pupils  and  fourteen  were 
the  kindred  of  its  pupils.  Among  their  descendants 
were  three  Dakota  pastors  and  many  of  the  most  faith- 
ful and  fruitful  communicants. 

One  large  log-house  of  five  rooms,  within  the  Ren- 
ville  stockade,  furnished  a  home  for  the  three  mission 
families  of  Dr.  Williamson,  Rev.  Stephen  R.  Riggs 
and  Gideon  H.  Pond.  One  room  was  both  church  and 
school  room  for  years.  Under  this  roof  the  mission- 
aries met  frequently  for  conference,  study  and  trans- 
lation of  the  word  of  God.  Here,  September  30,  1844, 
the  original  Dakota  Presbytery  was  organized. 

For  several  years  most  of  the  members  of  this  con- 
gregation were  women.  Once  in  the  new  and  then 
unfinished  church  edifice,  more  than  one  hundred  In- 
dian men  were  gathered.  When  urged  to  accept 
Christ  and  become  members  of  this  church,  they  re- 
plied that  the  church  was  made  up  of  squaws.  Did  the 
missionaries  suppose  the  braves  would  follow  tire  lead 
of  squaws  ?  Ugh  !  U,;>h  ' ' 

For  the  first  seven  years,  at  Lac-qui-Parle,  mission 
work  was  prosecuted,  with  marked  success  in  spite  of 
many  grave  hindrances.  But  for  the  four  years  fol- 
lowing— 1842-46 — the  work  was  seriously  retarded. 


io  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

The  crops  failed  and  the  savages  charged  their  mis- 
fortunes to  the  missionaries.  They  became  very  ugly, 
and  began  a  series  of  petty  yet  bitter  persecutions  a- 
gainst  the  Christian  Indians  and  the  missionaries.  The 
children  were  forbidden  to  attend  school;  the  women 
who  favored  the  church  had  their  blankets  cut  to 
pieces  and  were  shut  away  from  contact  with  the  mis- 
sion. The  cattle  and  horses  of  the  mission  were  killed, 
and  for  a  season  the  Lord's  work  was  stayed  at  Lac- 
qui-Parle.  Discouraged,  but  not  dismayed  His  serv- 
antis  were  watchful  for  other  opportunities  of  helpful 
service. 

In  1846,  the  site  of  the  present,  prosperous  city  of 
St.  Paul,  was  occupied  by  a  few  shanties,  owned  by 
"certain  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort,"  sellers  of  rum 
to  the  soldiers  and  the  Indians.  Nearby,  scattered 
over  the  bluffs,  were  the  teepees  of  Little  Crow's  band, 
forming  the  Sioux  village  of  Kaposia.  In  1846,  Little 
Crow,  their  belligerant  chieftain,  was  shot  by  his  own 
brother,  in  a  drunken  revel.  He  survived  the  wound, 
but  apparently  alarmed  at  the  influence  of  these  mod- 
ern harpies  over  himself  and  his  people,  he  visited  Fort 
Snelling  and  begged  a  missionary  for  his  village.  The 
United  States  agent  stationed  there  forwarded  this 
petition  to  Lac-qui-Parle  with  the  suggestion  that  Dr. 
Williamson  be  transferred  to  Kaposia.  The  invitation 
was  accepted  by  the  doctor,  so  in  November,  1846,  he 
became  a  resident  of  Kaposia  (now  South  St.  Paul). 
To  this  new  station,  he  carried  the  same  energy,  hope- 
fulness and  devotion,  he  had  shown  at  the  beginning. 
Here  he  remained  six  years,  serving  not  only  the  In- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  17 

dians  of  Little  Crow's  band,  but  also  doing  great  good 
to  the  white  settlers,  who  were  then  gathering  around 
the  future  Capital  City  of  Minnesota.  Here  in  1848, 
he  organized  an  Indian  church  of  eight  members.  It 
increased  to  fifteen  members,  in  1851,  when  the  In- 
dians were  removed. 

Then  followed  the  treaty  of  1851,  which  was  of 
great  import,  both  to  the  white  man  and  to  the  red 
man.  By  this  treaty,  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Minne- 
sota was  thrown  open  for  settlement  to  the  whites. 
This  took  away  from  the  Sioux  their  hunting-grounds, 
their  cranberry  marshes,  their  deer-parks  and  the 
graves  of  their  ancestors.  So  the  Dakotas  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi and  lower  Minnesota  packed  up  their  teepees, 
their  household  goods  and  gods,  some  in  canoes,  some 
on  ponies,  some  on  dogs,  some  on  the  women,  and 
slowly  and  sadly  took  up  their  line  of  march  towards 
the  setting  of  the  sun. 

No  sooner  did  the  Indians  move  than  Dr.  William- 
son followed  them  and  established  a  new  station  at 
Yellow  Medicine,  on  the  West  bank  of  the  Minnesota 
river  and  three  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  Yellow 
Medicine  river.  The  first  winter  there,  was  a  fight 
for  life.  The  house  was  unfinished ;  a  very  severe 
winter  set  in  unusually  early ,  the  snows  were  deep  and 
the  drifts  terrible;  the  supply-teams  were  snowed  in; 
the  horses  perished;  the  provisions  were  abandoned  to 
the  wolves  and  the  drivers  reached  home  in  a  half-froz- 
en condition.  But  God  cared  for  His  servants.  In  this 
emergency,  the  Rev.  M.  N.  Adams,  of  Lac-qui-Parle, 
performed  a  most  heroic  act.  In  mid-wir.ter,  with  the 


i8  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

thermometer  many  degrees  below  zero,  he  hauled  flour 
and  other  provisions  for  the  missionaries,  on  a  hand 
sled,  from  Lac-qui-Parle  to  Yellow  Medicine,  a  dis- 
tance cf  thirty- two  miles.  The  fish  gathered  in  shoals, 
an  unusual  occurrence,  near  the  mission  and  both  the 
Indians  and  the  missionaries  lived  through  that  ter- 
rible winter.  Here,  an /Indian  church  of  seventeen 
members  was  organized  by  Dr.  Williamson.  It  in- 
creased to  a  membership  of  thirty  in  the  next  decade. 

In  March,  1854,  the  mission  houses  at  Lac-qui-Parle 
were  destroyed  by  fire.  A  consolidation  of  the  mis- 
sion forces  was  soon  after  effected.  Dr.  Riggs  and 
other  helpers  were  transferred  from1  Lac-qui-Parle  to 
a  point  two  miles  distant  from  Yellow  Medicine  and 
called  Omehoo  (Hazelwood).  A  comfortable  mission 
home  was  erected.  The  native  Christians  removed 
from  Lac-qui-Parle  and  re-established  their  homes  at 
Hazelwood.  A  boarding  school  was  soon  opened  at 
this  point  by  Rev.  M.  N.  Adams.  A  neat  chapel  was 
also  erected.  A  church  of  thirty  members  was  organ- 
ized by  Mr.  Riggs.  It  grew  to  a  membership  of  forty- 
five  before  the  massacre.  These  were  mainly  from  the 
the  Lac-qui-Parle  church  which  might  be  called  the 
mother  of  all  the  Dakota  churches. 

There  were  now  gathered  around  the  mission  sta- 
tions, quite  a  community  of  young  men,  who  had  to 
a  great  extent,  become  civilized.  With  civilization 
came  new  wants — pantaloons  and  coats  and  hats. 
There  was  power  also  in  oxen  and  wagons  and  brick- 
houses.  The  white  man's  axe  and  plow  and  hoe  had 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  19 

been  introduced  and  the  red  man  was  learning  to  use 
them.     So  the  external  civilization  went  on. 

But  the  great  and  prominent  force  was  in  the  under- 
lying education  and  especially  in  the  vitalizing  and  re- 
newing power  of  Christian  truth.  So  far  as  the  inner 
life  was  changed,  civilized  habits  became  permanent; 
otherwise  they  were  shadows.  Evangelization  was 
working  out  civilization.  It  is  doing  its  permanently 
blessed  work  even  yet. 

About  this  time  occurred  the  formation  of  the  Haz- 
elwood  Republic. 

This  was  a  band  of  Indians  somewhat  advanced  in 
civilization,  who  were  organized  chiefly  by  the  efforts 
of  Dr.  Riggs.  under  a  written  constitution  and  by-laws. 
Their  officer?  wrere  a  President,  Secretary  and  three 
judges,  wTho  were  elected  by  a  vote  of  the  membership 
for  a  term  of  two  years  each.  Paul  Maza-koo-ta- 
mane  was  the  first  president  and  served  for  two  terms. 
This  was  an  interesting  experiment,  in  the  series  of 
efforts,  by  the  missionaries,  to  change  this  tribe  of  no- 
mads from  their  roving  teepee  life  to  that  of  perman- 
ent dwellers  in  fixed  habitations.  The  rude  shock  of 
savag.?  warfare,  which  soon  after  revolutionized  the 
whole  Sioux  nation,  swept  it  away  before  its  efficiency 
could  be  properly  tested.  Surely  it  was  a  novelty — an 
Indian  band,  regulated  by  written  laws  and  governed 
by  officers,  elected  by  themselves  for  a  term  of  years. 
It  now  exists  only  in  the  memory  of  the  oldest  of  the 
tribesmen  or  the  missionaries. 

In  1843,  a  new  station  was  established  at  Traverse 
des  Sioux  (near  St.  Peter,  Minnesota,)  by  the  Rev. 


-•o  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Stephen  R.  Riggs.  This  station  was  doomed  to  a  trag- 
ic history.  July  15,  1843,  Thomas  Longley,  the  favor- 
ite brother  of  Mrs.  Mary  Riggs,  was  suddenly  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  treacherous  waters  of  the  Minnesota 
and  laid  to  rest  under  what  his  sister  was  wont  to  call 
the  "Oaks  of  weeping" — three  dwarf  oaks  on  a  small 
knoll.  In  1844,  Robert  Hopkins  and  his  young  bride 
joined  the  workers  here.  In  1851,  July  4,  Mr.  Hop- 
kins was  suddenly  swept  away  to  death  by  the  fatal 
waves  of  the  Minnesota  and  his  recovered  body  was 
laid  to  rest  under  the  oaks  where  Thomas  Longley  had 
slept  all  alone  for  seven  years.  Thus  the  mission  at 
Traverse  des  Sioux  was  closed  by  the  messenger  of 
death.  It  was  continued,  however,  in  the  nearby  fron- 
tier town  of  St.  Peter,  whose  white  settlers  requested 
the  Rev.  M.  N.  Adams,  one  of  the  missionaries  to  the 
Sioux,  to  devote  his  time  to  their  spiritual  needs.  He 
complied  and  founded  a  white  Presbyterian  church  and 
it  is  one  of  the  strong  Protestant  organizations  of  Sou- 
thern Minnesota. 

In  1843,  also  the  Pond  brothers  established  a  station 
at  Oak  Grove,  twelve  miles  west  of  the  Falls  of  St.  An- 
thony. It  was  never  abandoned.  For  many  years  it 
was  the  center  of  beneficent  influences  to  both  races  for 
miles  around.  It  developed  into  the  white  Presbyter- 
ian church  of  Oak  Grove,  which  still  stands  as  a  mon- 
ument to  the  many  noble  qualities  of  its  founder,  Rev. 
Gideon  Hollister  Pond.  On  the  Sabbath  scores  of  his 
descendants  worship  within  its  walls.  The  surround- 
ing community  is  composed  largely  of  Ponds  and  their 
kindred. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  21 

In  1846,  a  mission  was  established  at  Red  Wing  by 
the  Reverends  J.  F.  Aiton  and  J.  W.  Hancock,  and 
another  in  1860,  at  Red  Wood  by  Rev.  John  P.  Wil- 
liamson. , 

In  1858,  a  church  was  organized  at  Red  Wing  with 
twelve  members.  This  was  swept  away  by  the  out- 
break in  1862. 

Dr.  John  P.  Williamson,  who  was  born  in  1835,  in 
one  of  the  mission  cabins  on  the  shores  of  Lac-qui- 
Parle,  who  has  spent  his  whole  life  among  the  Sioux 
Indians,  and  who  with  a  singleness  of  purpose,  worthy 
of  the  apostle  Paul,  has  devoted  his  whole  life  to  their 
temporal  and  spiritual  uplift,  thus  vividly  sketches  mis- 
sionary life  among  the  Sioux  in  his  boyhood  days : 
"IVty  first  serious  impression  of  life  was  that  I  was 
living  under  a  great  weight  of  something,  and  as  I 
began  to  discern  more  clearly,  I  found  this  weight  to 
be  the  all-surrounding  overwhelming  presence  of  hea- 
thenism, and  all  the  instincts  of  my  birth  and  culture 
of  a  Christian  home  set  me  at  antagonism  to  it  at  every 
point. 

"This  feeling  of  disgust  was  often  accompanied 
with  fear.  At  times,  violence  stalked  abroad  un- 
challenged and  dark  lowering  faces  skulked  about. 
Even  when  we  felt  no  personal  danger  this  incubus  of 
savagf  life  all  around  weighed  on  our  hearts.  Thus  it 
was  day  and  night.  Even  those  hours  of  twilight, 
which  brood  with  sweet  influences  over  so  many  lives, 
bore  to  us,  on  the  evening  air,  the  weird  cadences  of 
the  heathen  dance  or  the  chill  thrill  of  the  war-whoop. 

Ours  was  a  serious  life.  The  earnestness  of  our  par- 
ents in  the  pursuit  of  their  work  could  not  fail  to  im- 


2.?  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

press  in  some  degree  the  children.  The  main  purpose 
of  Christianizing  that  people  was  felt  in  everything.  It 
was  like  garrison  life  in  time  of  war.  But  this  serious- 
ness was  not  ascetical  or  moroseful.  Far  from  it.  Those 
missionary  heroes  were  full  of  gladness.  With  all  the 
disadvantages  of  such  a  childhood  was  the  rich  privi- 
lege of  understanding  the  meaning  of  cheerful  earnest- 
ness in  Christian  life." 


RF.V.  STEPHEN  R.  RIGGS,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

Forty-five  Years  a  Missionary  to  the  Dakotas. 


Chapter  III. 

Thus  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the  glo- 
rious work  of  conquering  the  Sioux  nation  for  Christ 
went  on.  It  was  pushed  vigorously  at  every  mission 
station  from  Lac-qui-Parle  to  Red  Wing  and  from 
Kaposia  to  Hazelwood.  Great  progress  was  made  in 
these  years.  And  such  a  work ! 

The  workers  were  buried  out  of  sight  of  their  fel- 
low-white men.  Lac-qui-Parle  was  more  remote  from 
Boston  than  Manilla  is  today.  It  took  Stephen  R. 
Riggs  three  months  to  pass  with  his  New  England 
bride  from  the  green  hills  of  her  native  state  to  Fort 
Snelling.  It  was  a  further  journey  of  thirteen  days 
over  a  trackless  trail,  through  the  wilderness,  to  their 
mission  home  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake-that-speaks. 
Even  as  late  as  1843,  it  required  a  full  month's  travel 
for  the  first  bridal  tour  of  Agnes  Carson  Johnson  as 
Mrs.  Robert  Hopkins  from  the  plains  of  Ohio  to  the 
prairies  of  Minnesota.  It  was  no  pleasure  tour  in 
Pullman  palace  cars,  on  palatial  limited  trains,  swift- 
ly speeding  over  highly  polished  rails  from  the  far 
east  to  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  in  those  days.  It  was 
a  weary,  weary  pilgrimage  of  weeks  by  boat  and  stage, 
by  private  conveyance  and  oft-times  on  foot.  One 
can  make  a  tour  of  Europe  today  with  greater  ease 
and  in  less  time  than  those  isolated  workers  at  Lac-qui- 
Parle  could  revisit  their  old  homes  in  Ohio  and  New 
England. 


2.1  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Within  their  reach  was  no  smithy  and  no  mill  until 
they  built  one ;  there  was  no  postoffice  within  one  hun- 
dred miles,  and  all  supplies  were  carried  from  Boston 
to  New  Orleans  by  sloops;  then  by  steamboats  almost 
the  whole  length  of  the  Mississippi ;  then  the  flatboat- 
men  sweated  and  swore  as  they  poled  them  up  the  Min- 
nesota to  the  nearest  landing-place;  then  they  had  to 
be  hauled  overland  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles. 
These  trips  were  ever  attended  with  heavy  toil,  often 
with  great  suffering  and  sometimes  with  loss  of  life. 

.Small  was  the  support  received  from  the  Board. 
The  entire  income  of  the  mission,  including  govern- 
ment aid  to  the  schools,  was  less  than  one  thousand 
dollars  a  year.  Upon  this  meager  sum,  three  ordained 
missionaries,  two  teachers  and  farmers,  and  six  women, 
with  eight  or  ten  children  were  maintained.  This  also, 
covered  travelling  expenses,  books  and  printing. 

The  rude  and  varied  dialects  of  the  different  bands 
of  the  savage  Sioux  had  been  reduced  to  a  written  lan- 
guage. This  was  truly  a  giant  task.  It  required  men 
who  were  fine  linguists,  very  studious,  patient,  persist- 
ent, and  capable  of  utilizing  their  knowledge  under 
grave  difficulties.  Such  were  the  Ponds,  Dr.  William- 
son, Mr.  Riggs  and  Joseph  Renville  by  whom  the  great 
task  was  accomplished.  It  took  months  and  years  of 
patient,  persistent,  painstaking  efforts;  but  it  was  final- 
ly accomplished. 

In  1852,  the  Dakota  Dictionary  and  Grammar  were 
published  by  the  Smithsonian  Institute  at  its  expense. 
The  dictionary  contained  sixteen  thousand  words  and 
received  the  warm  commendation  of  philologists  gen- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  25 

erally.     The  language  itself  is  still  growing  and  valu- 
able additions  are  being  made  to  it  year  by  year. 

Within  a  few  years,  a  revised  and  greatly  enlarged 
edition  should  be.  and  probably  will  be  published  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Sioux  nation. 

The  Word  of  God  too,  had  been  translated  into  this 
wild,  barbaric  tongue.  This  was  in  truth  a  mighty  un- 
dertaking-. It  involved  on  the  part  of  the  translators 
a  knowledge  of  the  French,  Latin,  Greek,  Hebrew  and 
Sioux  tongues  and  required  many  years  of  unremitting 
toil  en  the  part  of  those,  who  wrought  out  its  accom- 
plishment in  their  humble  log  cabins  on  the  shores  of 
Lakes  Calhcun  and  Lac-qui-Parle,  and  at  Kaposia  and 
Traverse  des  Sioux,  Yellow  Medicine  and  Hazel  wood. 

But  it,  too,  was  completed  and  published  in  1879,  by 
the  American  Bible  Society.  Hymn-books  and  text- 
books had  also  been  prepared  and  published  in  the  new 
language.  Books  like  the  Pilgrims  Progress  had  been 
issued  in  it — a  literature  for  a  great  nation  had  been 
created.  Comfortable  churches  and  mission  homes 
had  been  erected  at  the  various  mission  stations.  Out 
of  the  eight  thousand  Sioux  Indians  in  Minnesota, 
more  than  one  hundred  converts  had  been  gathered  in- 
to the  church.  The  faithful  missionaries,  who  had 
toiled  so  long,  with  but  little  encouragement,  now 
looked  forward  hopefully  into  the  future. 

Apparently  the  time  to  favor  their  work  had  come. 
But  suddenly  all  their  pleasant  anticipations  vanished — 
all  their  high  hopes  were  blasted. 

It  was  August  17,  1862,  a  lovely  Sabbath  of  the 
Lord.  It  was  sacramental  Sabbath  at  Hazelwood.  As 


26  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

their,  custom  was,  that  congregation  of  believers  and 
Yellow  Medicine  came  together  to  commemorate  their 
Lord's  death.  The  house  was  well-filled  and  the  mis- 
sionaries have  ever  remembered  that  Sabbath  as  one  of 
precious  interest,  for  it  was  the  last  time  they  ever  as- 
sembled in  that  beautiful  little  chapel.  A  great  trial  of 
their  faith  and  patience  was  before  them  and  they  knew 
it  not.  But  the  loving  Saviour  knew  that  both  the 
missionaries  and  the  native  Christians  required  just 
such  a  rest  with  Him  before  the  terrible  trials  came  up- 
on them. 

As  the  sun  sank  that  day  into  the  bosom  of  the  prai- 
ries, a  fearful  storm  of  fire  and  blood  burst  upon  the 
defenseless  settlers  and  missionaries.  Like  the  dread 
cyclone,  it  came,  unheralded,  and  like  that  much-to-be- 
dreaded  monster  of  the  prairies,  it  left  desolation  and 
death  in  its  pathway.  The  Sioux  arose  against  the 
whites  and  in  their  savage  wrath  swept  the  prairies  of 
Western  Minnesota  as  with  a  besom  of  destruction. 
One  thousand  settlers  perished  and  hundreds  of  happy 
homes  were  made  desolate.  The  churches,  school- 
houses  and  homes  of  the  missionaries  were  laid  in  ash- 
es. However,  all  the  missionaries  and  their  house- 
holds escaped  safely  out  of  this  fiery  furnace  of  bar- 
baric fury  to  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis.  All  else 
seemed  lost  beyond  the  possibility  of  recovery. 

In  dismay,  the  missionaries  fled  from  the  wreck  of 
their  churches  and  homes.  There  were  forty  persons 
in  that  band  of  fugitives,  missionaries  and  their  friends, 
who  spent  a  week  of  horrors — never-to-be-forgotten — 
in  their  passage  over  the  prairies  to  St.  Paul  and  Min- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  27 

neapolis.  By  clay  they  were  horrified  by  the  marks  of 
bloody  cruelties  along  their  pathway — dead  and  mang- 
led bodies,  wrecked  and  abandoned  homes.  At  night, 
they  were  terrified  by  the  flames  of  burning  homes  and 
fears  of  the  tomahawks  and  the  scalping  knives  of  their 
cruel  foes.  The  nights  were  full  of  fear  and  dread. 
Ever)-  voice  was  hushed  except  to  give  necessary  or- 
ders ;  every  eye  swept  the  hills  and  valleys  around ; 
every  ear  was  intensely  strained  to  catch  the  faintest 
noise,  in  momentary  expectation  of  the  unearthly  war- 
whoop  and  of  seeing  dusky  forms  with  gleaming  toma- 
hawks uplifted.  In  the  moonlight  mirage  of  the  prai- 
ries, every  taller  clump  of  grass,  every  blacker  hillock 
grew  into  a  blood  thirsty  Indian,  just  ready  to  leap  up- 
on them.  -'But.  by  faith,  they  were  able  to  sing  in 
holy  confidence ; 

"God  is  our  refuge  and  our  strength ; 

In  straits  a  present  aid; 
Therefore  although  the  hills  remove 
We  will  not  be  afraid." 

Am:  the  God,  in  whom  they  trusted,  fulfilled  his 
promises  to  them  and  brought  them  all,  in  safety,  to 
the  Twin  Cities.  And  as  they  passed  the  boundary  line 
of  safety,  every  heart  joined  in  the  glad-song  of  praise 
and  thanksgiving,  which  went  up  to  heaven.  "Jeho- 
vah has  triumphed,  His  people  are  free,"  seemed  to 
ring  through  the  air. 

Little  Crow,  the  chieftain  of  the  Kaposia  Band  was 
the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Indian  forces  in  this 
uprising.  He  was  forty  years  of  age,  possessed  of  con- 
siderable military  ability ;  wise  in  council  and  bnve  on 


PERILS   BY   THE   HEATHEN 


Missionaries   fleeing  from  Indian   mas- 
sacre  in   1862. 

Thursday  morning  of  that  terrible  week,  after  an  all- 
night's  rain,  found  them  all  cold,  wet  through  and  ut- 
terly destitute  of  cooked  food  and  fuel.  That  noon  they 
came  to  a  clump  of  trees  and  camped  down  on  the  wet 
prairies  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  They  killed  a  stray 
cow  and  made  some  bread  out  of  flour,  salt  and  water. 
An  artist,  one  of  the  company,  took  the  pictures  here 
Sfiven. 


28  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

the  field  of  battle.  He  had  wrought,  in  secret,  with  his 
fellow-tribesmen,  until  he  had  succeeded  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  greatest  combination  of  the  Indians  against 
the  whites  since  the  days  of  Tecumseli  and  the  Prophet 
in  the  Ohio  country,  fifty  years  before.  He  had  under 
his  control  a  large  force  of  Indian  warriors  armed  with 
Winchesters;  and  on  the  morning  of  the  battle,  he 
mustered  on  the  hills  around  New  Ulm,  the  largest 
body  of  Indian  cavalry  ever  gathered  together  in  Amer- 
ica. 

The.  whites  arose  in  their  might  and.  under  the 
leadership  of  that  gallant  general,  Henry  H.  Sibley, 
gave  battle  to  their  savage  foes.  Then  followed  weeks 
of  fierce  and  bloody  warfare.  It  was  no  child's  play. 
On  the  one  side  were  arrayed  the  fierce  warriors  of 
the  Sioux  nation,  fighting  for  their  ancestral  homes, 
their  ancient  hunting  grounds,  their  deer-parks  and 
the  graves  of  their  ancestors.  "We  must  drive  the 
white  man  east  of  the  Mississippi,"  was  the  declaration 
of  Little  Crow,  and  he  added  the  savage  boast;  "We 
will  establish  our  winter-quarters  in  St.  Paul  and  Min- 
neapolis." Over  against  them,  were  the  brave  pion- 
eers cf  Minnesota,  battling  for  the  existence  of  their 
beloved  state,  for  their  homes,  and  for  the  lives  and 
honor  of  their  wives  and  daughters.  The  thrilling 
history  of  the  siege  of  New  Ulm,  of  the  battle  of  Birch 
Coullie,  of  Fort  Ridgely  and  Fort  Abercrombie,  and  ci 
other  scenes  of  conflict  is  written  in  the  mingled  blood 
of  the  white  man,  and  of  the  red  man  on  the  beauti- 
ful plains  of  western  Minnesota.  The  inevitable  re-- 
.suit  ensued.  The  Sioux  were  defeated,  large  number.0 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  29 

were  slain  in-  battle  or  captured,  and  in  despair,  the 
others  fled  to  the  then  uninhabited  regions  beyond  the 
Red  River  of  the  North.  Many  of  these  found  ref- 
uge under  the  British  flag  in  Prince  Rupert's  Land 
(now  Manitoba). 

One  of  the  redeeming  features  in  this  terrible  trng 
edy  of  '62,  was  the  unflinching  loyalty  of  the  Chris- 
tian Sioux  to  the  cause  of  peace.  They  stood  firmly 
together  against  the  war-party  and  for  the  whites. 
They  abandoned  their  homes  and  pitched  their  tee- 
pees closely  together.  This  became  the  rallying  point 
for  all  who  were  opposed  to  the  outbreak.  They  call- 
ed it  Camp  Hope,  which  was  changed  after  the  flight 
of  Little  Crow's  savage  band  to  Camp  Lookout.  Two 
days  later,  when  General  Sibley's  victorious  troops 
arrived,  it  was  named  Camp  Release.  Then  it  was 
that  the  captives,  more  than  three  hundred  in  number 
were  released,  chiefly  through  the  efforts  of  the  Chris- 
tianized Indians. 

In  1902,  at  the  celebration  of  the  fortieth  anniver- 
sary of  the  battle  of  New  Ulm,  by  invitation  of  the 
citizens,  a  band  of  Sioux  Indians  pitched  their  tee- 
pees in  the  public  square  and  participated  in  the  ex- 
ercises of  the  occasion.  This  was  a  striking  illustra- 
tion of  the  amity  now  existing  between  the  two  races 
upon  the  very  ground,  where  their  immediate  ances- 
tors so  eagerly  sought  each  other's  life-blood,  in  the 
recent  past.  Here  on  the  morn  of  battle,  on  the  sur- 
rounding hills,  in  the  long  ago.  Little  Crow  had  marsh- 


30  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

ailed  his  fierce  warriors,  who  rushed  eagerly  in  savage 
glee,  again  and  again,  to  the  determined  assault,  only 
to  be  driven  back,  by  the  brave  Anglo-Saxon  defend- 
ers. Tablets,  scattered  here  and  there  over  the  plains, 
in  the  valley  of  the  Minnesota  River,  tell  the  story  of 
the  Sioux  nation,  in  the  new  Northwest. 

John  Baptiste  Renville,  a  licentiate  of  the  Presbyter- 
ian church,  and  who  later  was  a  famous  preacher  of 
great  power  among  his  own  people,  remained  inside 
of  the  Indian  lines,  and  was  a  powerful  factor  in  caus- 
ing the  counter  revolution  which  hastened  the  over- 
throw of  the  rebellion,  and  the  deliverance  of  the 
white  captives.  Elder  Peter  Big  Fire. turned  the  war 
party  from  the  trail  of  the  fleeing  missionaries  and 
their  friends,  thus  saving  two-score  lives.  One  In- 
dian alone,  John  Other-Day,  saved  the  lives  of  sixty- 
two  whites.  One  elder  of  the  church,  Simon  Anak- 
wangnanne,  restored  a  captive  white  woman  and  three 
children.  And  still  another,  Paul  Mintakutemanne, 
rescued  a  white  woman  and  several  children  and  a 
whole  family  of  half-breeds.  These  truly  "good  Indi- 
ans" saved  the  lives  of  more  than  their  own  number 
of  whites, — probably  two  hundred  souls  in  all. 

In  token  of  her  appreciation  of  these  invaluable  ser- 
vices, Minnesota  has  caused  a  monument  to  be  erect- 
ed in  honor  of  these  real  braves,  on  the  very  plains, 
then  swept  by  the  Sioux  with  fire  and  blood,  in 
their  savage  wrath. 

It  is  located  on  the  battlefield  of  Birch  Coullie,  near 
Morton  in  Renville  County.  The  cenotaph  is  built 
entirelv  of  native  stone  of  different  varieties.  It  rises 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  31 

to  the  height  of  fifty-eight  feet  above  the  beautiful 
prairies  by  which  it  is  surrounded.  It  bears  this  ap- 
propriate insenpl  :on 


HUMANITY. 

Erected  A.  D.  1899,  by  the  Minnesota  Vallev 
Historical  Society  to  commemorate  the  brave, 
faithful  and  humane  conduct  of  the  loyal  Indi- 
ans who  saved  the  lives  of  white  people  and 
were  true  to  their  obligations  throughout  the 
Sioux  war  in  Minnesota  in  1862,  and  especially 
to  honor  the  services  of  those  here  named : 

Other  Day- — Ampatutoricna. 

Paul —  Mintakutemanne. 

Lorenzo  Lawrence — Towanctaton. 

Simon — Anakwangnanne. 

Mary  Crooks — Mankahta  Heita-win. 


Chapter  IV. 

"Who  are  these  that  fly  as  a   cloud,  and   as   the  doves   to 
their  windows?" — Isaiah  60:8. 


But  now  occurred  the  strangest  phase  of  this  won- 
clrously  strange  story.  In  November,  1862,  four 
hundred  defeated  Indian  warriors,  many  of  them  lead- 
ers of  their  people,  were  confined  in  prison-pens  at 
Mankato,  Minnesota.  While  free  on  the  prairies., 
these  wild  warriors  had  bitterly  hated  the  missionar- 
ies with  all  the  intensity  of  their  savage  natures.  They 
had  vigorously  opposed  every  effort  of  the  mission- 
aries in  their  behalf.  They  had  scornfully  rejected 
the  invitations  of  the  Gospel.  But  now  in  their  claims, 
they  earnestly  desired  to  hear  the  glad  tidings  they 
had  formerly  scorned.  They  sent  for  the  mission- 
aries to  visit  them  in  prison  and  the  missionaries  re- 
sponded with  eager  joy.  And  the  Holy  Spirit  accom- 
panied them.  Thirty-eight  of  the  prisoners  were 
under  the  death-sentence  and  were  executed  in  Decem- 
ber. 

"I  remember/'  said  Dr.  Williamson,  "feeling  a  great 
desire  to  preach  to  them,  mingled  with  a  kind  of  terror 
partly  from  a  sense  of  grave  responsibility  in  speaking 
to  so  many  whose  probation  was  so  nearly  closed,  and 
partly  from  a  sense  of  fear  of  hearing  them  say  to 
me  "Go  home ;  when  we  were  free  we  would  not  hear 
you  preach  to  us ;  why  do  you  come  here  to  torment 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  33 

11  s  when  we  are  in  chains  and  cannot  go  away-  It" 
was  a  great  relief  to  find  them  listening  intently  to  all 
I  had  to  say." 

The  prisoners  were  supplied  with  Bibles  and  other 
books,  and  for  a  time,  the  prison  became  a  school. 
They  were  all  eager  to  learn.  The  more  their  minds 
were  directed  to  God  and  His  Word,  the  more  they 
became  interested  in  secular  studies. 

Very  soon  the  Indians  of  their  own  accord  began 
holding  meetings  every  morning  and  evening  in  which 
they  sang  and  spoke  and  prayed.  In  a  short  time, 
there  were  ninety  converts  that  would  lead  in  public 
prayer.  Of  those  who  were  executed,  thirty  were 
baptized.  Standing  in  a  foot  of  snow,  manacled  two 
and  two,  they  frequently  gathered  to  sing  and  pray 
and  listen  to  the  words  of  eternal  life.  Of  this  work, 
the  Rev.  Gideon  H.  Pond  wrote  at  the  time;  "There 
is  a  degree  of  religious  interest  manifested  by  them, 
which  is  incredible.  They  huddle  themselves  togeth- 
er every  morning  and  evening,  read  the  scriptures,  sing 
hymns,  confess  one  to  another  and  pray  together. 
They  declare  they  have  left  their  superstitions  forever, 
and  that,  they  do  and  will  embrace  the  religion  of 
Jesus." 

In  March,  Mr.  Pond  visited  Mankato  again  and 
spent  two  Sabbaths  with  the  men  in  prison,  establish- 
ing them  in  their  new  faith.  Before  his  departure,  he 
administered  the  Lord's  supper,  to  these  new  converts. 
And  again  the  Mankato  prison-pens  witnessed  a 
strange  and  wondrous  scene.  Three  hundred  embitter- 
ed, defeated  Indian  warriors,  manacled,  fettered  with 


,=14  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

balls  and  chains, — but  clothed  and  in  their  right  minds, 
—were  sitting  in  groups  upon  the  wintry  grounds  rev- 
erently observing  the  Lord's  supper.  Elders  Robert 
Hopkins,  Peter  Big  Fire  and  David  Grey  Cloud  offi- 
ciated with  reverence  and  dignity.  The  whole  move- 
ment was  marvelous !  It  was  like  a  "nation  born  in  3 
day."  And  after  many  years  of  severe  testing,  all  who 
know  the  facts,  testify  that  it  was  a  genuine  work  of 
God's  Holy  Spirit.  The  massacre  and  the  subsequent 
events  destroyed  the  power  of  the  Priests  of  Devils, 
which  had  previously  ruled  and  ruined  these  wretch 
es  tribes.  They  themselves,  exploded  the  dynamite 
under  the  throne  of  Paganism  and  shattered  it  to  frag- 
ments forever. 

In  1863,  these  Indians  were  transferred  to  Daven- 
port, Iowa,  where  thev  were  confined  in  prison  for 
three  years.  In  1866  they  were  released  by  the  gov- 
ernment and  returned  to  their  native  prairies,  where 
they  then  became  the  nuclei  of  other  churches,  other 
Sabbath  schools  and  other  church  organizations ;  and 
so  these  formerly  savage  Sioux  became  a  benediction 
rather  than  a  terror  to  their  neighbors  on 'the  plains  of 
the  Dakotas.  The  church  of  the  prison-pen  became 
the  prolific  mother  of  churches. 

While  these  events  were  transpiring  in  the  prison- 
pen  at  Mankato,  a  similar  work  of  grace  was  also  in 
progress  in  the  prison  camp  at  Fort  Snelling,  where 
fifteen  hundred  men,  women  and  children ,  mainly  the 
families  of  the  Mankato  prisoners,  were  confined  under 
guard.  The  conditions,  in  both  places,  were  very 
similar.  In  the  camp  as  well  as  in  the  prison,  they 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  35 

were  in  grave  troubles  and  great  anxieties.  In  their 
<listrcs>es  they  called  mightily  upon  the  Lord.  Here 
John,  the  Beloved  (John  P.  Williamson  D.D.)  minis- 
tered to  their  temporal  and  spiritual  wants.  The  Lord 
heard  and  answered  their  burning  and  agonizing  cries. 
By  gradual  steps,  but  with  overwhelming  power  came 
the  heavenly  visitation.  Many  were  convicted ;  con- 
fessions and  professions  were  made;  idols  reverenced 
for  many  generations  were  thrown  away  by  the  score. 
More  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  were  baptized  and 
organized  into  a  Presbyterian  church,  which,  after 
3rears  of  bitter  wandering,  was  united  with  the  church 
of  the  Prison  Pen  and  formed  the  large  congregation 
of  the  Pilgrim  church. 

Thus  all  that  winter  long,  62-3,  there  was  in  prog- 
ress within  the  rude  walls  of  those  terrible  prison-pens 
at  Mankato,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  revivals  since 
the  day  of  Pentecost.  And  in  February,  '63,  Dr.  Will- 
iamson and  Rev.  Gideon  H.  Pond  spent  a  week  in 
special  services  amongst  them. 

The  most  careful  examinations  possible  were  made 
into  their  individual  spiritual  condition  and  the  most 
faithful  instruction  given  them  as  to  their  Christian  du- 
ties ;  then  those  Indian  warriors  were  all  baptized,  re- 
ceived into  the  communion  of  the  church  and  organ- 
ized into  a  Presbyterian  church  within  the  walls  of  the 
stockade;  three  hundred  in  a  day!  Truly  impressive 
was 

THE    BAPTISMAL    SCENE. 

The  conditions  of  baptism  were  made  very  plain  to 
the  prisoners  and  it  was  offered  to  only  such  as  were 


3i6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

willing  to  comply  fully  with  those  conditions.  All 
were  forbidden  to  receive  the  rite,  who  did  not  do  it 
heartily  tc  the  God  of  Heaven,  whose  eye  penetrated 
each  of  their  hearts.  All,  by  an  apparently  hearty  re- 
sponse, indicated  their  desire  to  receive  the  rite  on  the 
proffered  conditions.  As  soon  as  the  arrangements 
were  completed, .  they  came  forward  one  by  one,  as 
their  names  were  called  and  were  baptized  into  the 
name  of  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  while  each 
subject  stood  with  the  right  hand  raised  and  head  bow- 
ed and  many  of  them  with  their  eyes  closed  with  an 
appearance  of  profound  reverence.  As  each  came  for- 
ward to  be  baptized  one  of  the  ministers  addressed  to 
him  in  a  low  voice  a  few  appropriate  words.  This  was 
the  substance  of  these  personal  addresses.  "My  broth- 
er, this  is  a  mark  of  God,  which  is  placed  upon  you. 
You  will  carry  it  with  you  while  you  live.  It  intro- 
duces you  into  the  great  family  of  God  who  looks 
down  from  heaven,  not  upon  your  head  but  into  your 
heart.  This  ends  your  superstition,  and  from  this  time 
you  are  to  call  God  your  Father.  Remember  to  hono^ 
Him.  Be  resolved  to  do  His  will."  Each  one  re- 
sponded heartily,  "Yes,  I  will." 

Gideon  H.   Pond  then  addressed  them  collectively. 

"Hitherto  I  have  addressed  you  as  friends ;  now  I 
call  you  brethren.  For  years  we  have  contended  to- 
gether on  this  subject  of  religion;  now  our  contentions 
cease.  We  have  one  Father,  we  are  one  family.  I 
shall  soon  leave  you  and  shall  probably  see  your  faces 
no  more  in  this  world.  Your  adherence  to  the  medi- 
cine sack  and  the  Natawe  (consecrated  war  weapons) 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  37 

have  brought  you  to  your  ruin.  The  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  can  save  you.  Seek  him  with  all  ypur  heart. 
He  looks  riot  upon  your  heads  nor  on  your  lips  but 
into  your  bosoms.  Brothers,  I  will  make  use  of  a 
term  of  brotherly  salutation,  to  which  you  have  been 
accustomed  to  your  medicine  dances  and  say  to  you: 
"'  'Brethren  I  spread  my  hands  over  you  and  bless 
you.'  :  Three  hundred  voices  responded  heartily,. 
"  'Amen,  vea  and  Amen.'  " 


Chapter  V. 

It  was  1884.  Fifty  years  since  the  coming"  of  the 
Pond  brothers  to  Fort  Snelling — twenty-one  years 
since  the  organization  of  the  church  in  the  prison-pen 
at  Mankato.  One  bright  September  day,  from  the 
heights  of  Sisseton,  South  Dakota,  a  strangely  beau- 
tiful scene  was  spread  out  before  the  eye.  In  the  dis- 
tance the  waters  of  Lake  Traverse  (source  of  the  Red 
River  of  the  North),  and  Big  Stone  Lake  (head  wat- 
ers of  the  Minnesota) ,  glistened  in  the  bright  sunshine, 
their  waters  almost  commingling-  ere  they  began  their 
diverse  journey  ings — the  former  to  Hudson's  Bay,  the 
latter  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  At  our  feet  were  prair- 
ies rich  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord.  The  spot  was  lyak- 
aptapte,  that  is  the  Ascension.  Half-way  up  was  a 
large  wooden  building,  nestling  in  a  grasy  cove.  Round 
about  on  the  hillsides  were  white  teepees.  Dusky 
forms  were  passing  to  and  fro  and  pressing  round  the 
doors  and  windows.  We  descended  and  found  our- 
selves in  the  midst  of  a  throng  of  Sioux  Indians.  In- 
stinctively we  asked  ourselves,  Why  are  they  here?  Is 
this  one  of  their  old  papan  festivals?  Or  is  it  a  coun- 
cil of  war?  We  entered.  The  spacious  house  was 
densely  packed;  we  pressed  our  way  to  the  front. 
Hark!  They  are  singing.  We  could  not  understand 
the  words,  but  the  air  was  familiar.  It  was  Bishop 
Heber's  hymn  (in  the  Indian  tongue)  : 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  39 

"From  Greenlands  icy  mountains, 

From  India's  coral  strand. 

*  *  * 

Salvation  !  O  Salvation  ! 

The  joyful  sound  proclaim, 
Till  each  remotest  nation 

Ha?  learned  Messiah's  Name. 
Waft,  waft,  ye  winds,  His  story, 

And  you,  ye  waters,  roll, 
Till  like  a  sea  of  glory 

It  spreads  from  pole  to  pole." 

With  what  joyful  emphasis,  this  strange  congrega- 
tion sang  these  words. 

We  breathed  easier.  This  was  no  pagan  festival,  no 
savage  council  of  war.  It  was  the  fifteenth  grand  an- 
nual council  of  the  Dakota  Christian  Indians  of  the 
Northwest. 

The  singing  was  no  weaklunged  performance — not 
altogether  harmonious,  but  vastly  sweeter  than  a  war- 
whoop  ;  certainly  hearty  and  sincere  and  doubtless  an 
acceptable  offering  of  praise.  The  Rev.  John  Baptiste 
Renville  was  the  preacher.  His  theme  was  EzekieFs 
vision  of  the  Valley  of  Dry  Bones.  We  did  not  knew 
how  he  handled  his  subject.  But  the  ready  utterance, 
the  sweet  flow  of  words,  the  simple  earnestness  of  the 
speaker  and  the  fixed  attention  of  the  audience  mark- 
ed it  as  a  complete  success.  When  the  sermon  was  fin- 
ished, there  was  another  loud-voiced  hymn  and  then 
the  Council  of  Days  was  declared  duly  opened. 

Thus  they  gather  themselves  together,  year  by  year 


40  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

to  take  counsel  in  reference  to  the  things  of  the  king- 
dom. The  Indian  moderator,  Artemas  Ehnamane,  the 
Santee  pastor,  was  a  famous  paddle-man,  a  mighty 
hunter  and  the  son  of  a  great  conjuror  and  war-proph- 
et, but  withal  a  tender,  faithful,  spiritual  pastor  of  his 
people.  Rev.  Alfred  L.  Riggs,  D.D.,  the  white  mod- 
erator, who  talked  so  glibly  alternately  in  Sioux  and 
English  and  smiled  so  sweetly  in  both  languages  at 
once,  was  "Good  Bird,"  one  of  the  first  white  babes 
born  at  Lac-qui-Parle.  John,  The  Beloved,  one  of  the 
chief  white  workers,  as  a  boy  had  the  site  of  Minneap- 
olis and  St.  Paul  for  a  play-ground,  and  the  little  In- 
dian lads  for  his  playmates.  That  week  we  spent  ar 
lyakaptapfe  was  a  series  of  rich,  rare  treats.  We  list- 
ened to  the  theological  class  of  young  men,  students 
of  Santee  and  Sisseton.  We  watched  the  smiling  fac- 
es of  the  women  as  they  bowed  in  prayer,  and  brought 
their  offerings  to  the  missionary  meetings.  Such  won- 
drous liberality  those  dark-faced  sisters  displayed.  We 
marked  with  wonder  the  intense  interest  manifested 
hour  by  hour  by  all  classes  in  the  sermons,  addresses, 
and  especially  in  the  discussion :  "How  shall  we  build 
up  the  church?"  Elder  David  Grey  Qoud  said,  "We 
must  care  for  the  church  if  we  would  make  it  effective. 
We  must  care  for  all  we  gather  into  the  church."  The 
Rev.  James  Red-Wing  added,  "The  work  of  the 
church  is  heavy.  When  a  Red  River  cart  sticks  in  the 
mud  we  call  all  the  help  we  can  and  together  we  lift  ii 
out ;  we  must  all  lift  the  heavy  load  of  the  church."  The 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  41 

Rev.  David  Grey  Cloud  closed  with :  "We  musjt  cast 
out  all  enmity,  have  love  for  one  another  and  then  we 
shall  be  strong." 

"Does  the  keeping-  of  Dakota  customs  benefit  or  in- 
jure the  Dakota  People?" 

Deacon  Boy-that-walks-on-the-water  responded  em- 
phatically. "The  ancient  Dakota  customs  are  all  bad. 
There  is  no  good  in  them.  They  are  all  sin,  all  sor- 
row. All  medicine  men  are  frauds.  Jesus  is  the  only 
one  to  hold  to."  Rev.  Little-Iron-Thunder  said 
"When  I  was  a  boy  I  was  taught  the  sacred  dances  and 
all  the  mysteries;  to  shoot  with  the  bag;  to  hold  the 
sacred  shell.  To  gain  a  name,  the  Dakotas  will  suffei 
hunger,  cold,  even  death.  But  all  this  is  a  cheat.  It- 
will  not  give  life  to  the  people.  Only  one  name  will 
give  life, — even  Jesus."  Rev.  Daniel  Renville  de- 
clared :  "Faith  is  the  thing  our  people  need ;  not  faith 
in  everything,  but  faith  in  Christ;  not  for  hope  of  re- 
ward.'' 

There  were  evening  gatherings  in  the  interest  of  tin- 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  and  the  Youm 
People's  Christian  Endeavor  Societies.  These  are  two. 
of  the  most  hopeful  features  of  the  work.  With  the 
young  men  and  maidens  of  the  .tribe  in  careful  training 
in  Christian  knowledge  and  for  Christian  service,  there 
must  be  far-reaching  and  permanent  beneficent  results. 

Sabbath  came!  A  glorious  day!  A  fitting  crown  of 
glory  for  a  week  of  such  rare  surprises.  A  strange 
chanting  voice,  like  that  of  a  herald  mingled  with  our 


A-2  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

day-break  dreams.  Had  we  been  among-  the  Moslems, 
we  should  have  thought  it  the  muezzin's  cry.  It  wa> 
all  Indian  to  us,  but  it  was  indeed  a  call  to  prayer 
with  this  translation  in  English : — 

"Morning"  is  coming1!  Morning  is  coming!  Wake  up! 
Wake  up!  Come  to  sing!  Come  to  pray." 

Very  soon,  the  sweet  music  of  prayer  and  praise 
from  the  white  teepees  on  the  hillside,  rose  sweetly  on 
the  air,  telling  us.  that  the  day  of  their  glad  solemnities 
had  begun.  The  great  congregation  assembled  in  the 
open  air.  Pastor  Renville,  who  as  a  little  lad  played 
at  the  feet  of  the  translators  of  the  Bible  into  the  Sioux 
language,  and  who  as  a  young  man  organized  a  coun- 
ter revolution  among  the  Christian  Indians  in  favor 
of  the  government  in  the  terrible  days  of  '62,  presided 
with  dignity,  baptizing  a  little  babe  and  receiving  sev- 
eral recent  converts  into  the  church.  A  man  of  rare 
powers  and  sweet  temperament  is  the  Rev.  John  Bap- 
tiste  Renville,  youngest  son  of  the  famous  Joseph  Ren- 
ville. A  wonderfully  strange  gathering  is  this.  Hun- 
dreds of  Indians  sealed  in  semi-circles  on  the  grass, 
reverently  observing  the  Lord's  Supper.  Probablv 
one-third  of  the  males  in  that  assemblage  were  parti- 
cipants in  the  bloody  wars  of  the  Sioux  nation.  The 
sermon  was  delivered  by  Solomon  His-Own-Grand- 
father,  who  had  taken  an  active  part  in  the  war  of 
1862,  but  was  now  a  missionary  among  his  own  people 
in  Manitoba.  The  bread  was  broken  by  Artemas  Eh- 
namane  ("Walking  Along"),  who  was  condemned 
and  pardoned,  and  then  converted  after  that  appalling 
tragedy  in  1862.  The  wine  was  poured  by  the  man 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  43 

whom  all  the  Sioux  lovingly  call  John  (Dr.  John  P. 
Williamson)  who  led  them  in  the  burning-  revival 
scenes  in  the  prison-camp  at  Fort  Snelling  in  1863. 
And  as  he  referred  to  those  thrilling  times,  their  tears 
flowed  like  rain.  It  is  said  that  Indians  cannot  weep, 
but  scores  of  them  wept  that  day  at  Ascension.  One 
of  the  officiating  elders  was  a  son  of  the  notorious 
chieftain  Little  Crow,  who  was  so  prominent  against 
the  Anglo-Saxons  in  those  days  of  carnage.  As  we 
partook  of  those  visible  symbols  of  our  Saviour's  brok- 
en body,  and  shed  blood,  with  this  peculiar  congrga- 
tion,  so  recently  accustomed  to  the  war-whoop  and  the 
scalp-dance,  we  freely  mingled  our  tears  with  theirs. 
And  as  our  minds  ranged  over  the  vast  Dakota  field 
and  as  we  remembered  the  thousands  of  Christian 
Sioux,  their  Presbytery  and  their  Association,  their 
scores  of  churches  and  their  many  Sabbath  Schools, 
vheir  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  their  Y.  P.  S.  C.  R.  associations, 
their  missionary  societies  and  other  beneficent  organi- 
zations, their  farms  and  homes,  their  present  pure,  hap- 
py rendition,  and  contrasted  it  with  their  former  su- 
perstition, nakedness  and  filthy  teepee  lifr,  we  sang 
joyfully; 

j.clio:'.:!     Wh'it  wondrous  works 

Have,  by  the  Lord,  boen  wrought; 
Behold!     What  precious  souls 

Have,  by  His  blood,  been  bought. 

As  ibe  .'hades  of  evening  dre11/  on,  the  different 
ban  I-  iv.'M  their  farewell  meetings  in  their  teepees. 
There  were  sounds  of  sweet  music — joyous  ones — ech- 


44  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

oing  and  re-echoing  over  the  prairies — "He  leadeth  me, 
Oh    precious   thought/'    "Nearer,   ir.v    God   to  theo," 
"Blessed  Assurance,    Jesus    hath    given" — until     the 
whole  vas-.  blended  in  one  gran.l  refrain: — 
"Blest  be  the  tu-  that  b'nds 

Our  hearts  .n  Christian  love; 
The  fellowship  of  Christian  minds 

Is  like  to  that  above." 

The  Council  Tent  was  in  darkness !  The  lights 
were  out  in  the  teepees.  The  whole  camp  was  wrap- 
ped in  solid  slumber.  And  as  we  sunk  to  rest  in  our 
bed  of  new-mown  hay,  we  breathed'  a  prayer  for  the 
slumbering  Sioux  around  us;  May  the  Cloud,  by  day, 
and  the  Pillar  of  Fire,  by  night,  guide  the  Sioux  Na- 
tion through  the  Red  Sea  of  Savagery,  superstition 
and  sin  to  the  Promised  Land  of  Christian  Civiliza- 
tion. 

The  Native  Missionary  Society. 
It  is  well  worth  a  journey  to  the  land  of  the  Dako- 
tas  to  witness  an  anniversary  gathering  of  their  Wom- 
an's Misssionary  Society.  You  enter  the  great  Coun- 
cil Tent.  It  is  thronged  with  these  nut-brown  women 
of  the  plains.  A  matronly  woman  welcomes  you,  and 
presides  with  grace  and  dignity.  A  bright  and  beau- 
tiful young  maiden — a  graduate  of  Santee  or  Good 
Will — controls  the  organ  and  sweetly  leads  the  service 
of  song.  And  oh  how  they  do  sing !  You  cannot  un- 
derstand the  words,  but  the  airs  are  familiar.  Now  it 
is  Bishop  Coxe's  "Latter  Day"  sung  with  vim  in  the 
Indian  tongue; 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  45 

"We  are  living,  we  are  dwelling, 
In  a  grand  and  awful  time; 
In  an  age  on  ages  telling, 
To  be  living  is  sublime." 

And  now  some  sedate  matron  rises  and  reads  a 
carefully  written  paper,  contrasting  their  past,  vile 
teepee  life  of  ignoble  servitude  to  Satan,  with  their 
present,  pure  life  of  glorious  liberty  in  the  Lord  Je- 
sus Christ.  And  then  they  sing,  so  earnestly  for  they 
are  thinking  of  their  pagan  sisters  of  the  wild  tribes, 
sitting  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death,  in  the 
regions  beyond.  The  hymn  is  Draper's  "Missionary 
Giant." 

"Ye  Christian  heralds,  go  proclaim 
Salvation  through  Emmanuel's  name; 
To  distant  lands  the  tidings  bear 
And  plant  the  Rose  of  Sharon  there." 

And  now  a  lively  young  lass,  neatly  attired,  comes 
forward  and  with  a  fine,  clear  accent,  recites  a  poem 
oi  hope,  touching  the  bright  future  of  their  tribe, 
when  tbe  present  generation  of  young  men  and  maid- 
ens, nourished  in  Christian  homes,  educated  in  Christ- 
ian schools  and  trained  in  the  Young  People's  societ- 
ies for  efficient  service,  shall  control  their  tribe,  and 
move  the  great  masses  of  their  people  upward  and 
God-ward,  and  elevate  the  Sioux  Nation  to  a  lofty 
plane  of  Christian  civilization  and  culture;  and  enable 
them  to  display  to  the  world  the  rich  fruition  of 
Christian  service.  And,  by  request,  their  voices 
out  in  song  these  thrilling  words ; 


^6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

"Watchman,  tell  us  of  the  night, 
For  the  morning  seems  to  dawn ; 
Traveller,  darkness  takes  its  flight. 
Doubt  and  terror  are  withdrawn. 
Watchman,  let  thy  wanderings  cease; 
Hie  thee,  to  thy  quiet  home; 
Traveller,  lo,  the  Prince  of  Peace, 
Lo,  the  Son  of  God  is  come!" 

Fervent  prayers  are  frequently  interspersed  in  these 
exercises.  And  oh,  what .  wondrous  liberality  these 
dark-skinned  sisters  of  the  Dakota  plains  display ! 

How  full  their  hands  are  with  rich  gifts,  gleaned 
out  of  their  poverty  for  the  treasury  of  their  Saviour- 
King.  For  many  years,  the  average  annual  contribu- 
tions per  capita  to  missoins,  by  these  Sioux  sisters, 
have  fully  measured  up  to  the  standard  of  their  more 
highly  favored  Anglo-Saxon  sisters  of  the  wealthy 
Presbyterian  and  Congregational  denominations,of 
which  they  form  a  humble  part. 


Chapter  VI. 

It  was  1905.  From  the  heights  of  Sisseton,  South 
Dakota,  another  striking  scene  met  the  eye.  The  great 
triangular  Sisseton  reserve  of  one  million  acres  no 
longer  exists.  Three  hundred  thousand  of  its  choic- 
est acres  are  now  held  in  severalty  by  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred members  of  the  Sisseton  and  Wahpeton  Band  of 
the  Dakotas — the  "Leaf  Dwellers"  of  the  plains. 
Their  homes,  their  schools,  their  churches  cover  the 
prairies.  That  spire  pointing  heavenward  rises  from 
Good  Will  Church,  a  commodious,  well-furnished  edi- 
fice, with  windows  of  stained  glass.  Within  its  walls, 
there  worship  en  the  Sabbath,  scores  of  dusky  Presby- 
terian Christians.  The  pastor,  the  Rev.  Charles  Craw- 
ford, in  whose  veins  there  flows  the  mingled  blood  of 
the  shrewd  Scotch  fur  trader  and  the  savage  Sioux, 
lives  in  that  comfortable  farm  house  a  few  rods  distant. 
He  has  a  pastorate  that  many  a  white  minister  might 
covet.  Miles  to  the  west,  still  stands  in  its  grassy 
cove  on  the  coteaux  of  the  prairie,  the  Church  of  the 
Ascension,  referring  not  to  the  ascension  of  our  Lord, 
but  to  "the  going  up"  of  the  prairies.  On  the  hill  a- 
bove  it,  is  the  cozy  home  of  the  pastor  emeritus,  the 
the  Rev.  John  Baptiste  Renville,  whose  pastorate,  in 
point  of  continuous  service,  has  been  the  longest  in  the 
two  Dakotas.  After  a  long  lifetime  of  faithful  minis- 
trations to  the  people  of  his  own  charge,  enfeebled  by 
age  and  disease,  he  sweetly  fell  asleep  in  Jesus,  Dec, 


48  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

19,  1904.  Doubtless  his  is  a  starry  crown,  richly  gem- 
med, in  token  of  the  multitude  of  the  souls  of  his  fel- 
low tribesmen,  led  to  the  Savior  by  his  tender,  faithful 
ministry  of  a  life-time  in  their  midst.  Round  about 
these  two  churches  cluster  half  a  dozen  other  congre- 
gations, worshipping  in  comfortable  church  homes. 
These  form  only  a  part  of  the 

PRESBYTERY  OF  DAKOTA. 

The  original  Presbytery  of  Dakota  was  organized 
September  30,  1844,  at  the  mission  Home  of  Dr.  Will- 
iamson, at  L^ac-qui-Parle,  Minnesota.  It  was  organiz- 
ed, by  the  missionaries,  among  the  Dakotas,  for  the 
furtherance  of  their  peculiar  work.  The  charter  mem- 
bers were  three  ministers,  the  Rev.  Samuel  W.  Pond, 
Rev.  Thomas  S.  Williamson,  M.D.,  and  Rev.  Stephen 
R.  Riggs  and  one  elder  Alexander  G.  Huggins.  It- 
was  an  independent  presbytery,  and,  for  fourteen 
years,  was  not  connected  with  any  Synod.  It  was  a 
lone  presbytery,  in  a  vast  region,  now  covered  by  a 
dozen  Synods  and  scores  of  presbyteries.  For  many 
years,  the  white  and  Indian  churches  that  were  organ- 
ized in  Minnesota,  were  united  in  this  presbytery  and 
•wrought  harmoniously  together.  In  1858,  the  Gener- 
al Assembly  of  Presbyterian  churches  (N.  S.)  invit- 
ed this  independent  presbytery  to  unite  with  her  two 
Minnesota  Presbyteries  and  form  the  Synod  of  Minne- 
sota which  was  accomplished. 

Solely  on  account  of  the  barrier  of  the  language,  the 
missionaries  and  churches  among  the  Dakotas,  peti- 
tioned the  Synod  of  Minnesota  to  organize  them  into 
a  separate  presbytery.  And  the  Synod  so  ordered  and 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  49 

it  was  so  done,  September  30,  1867,  just  twenty  three 
years  after  the  first  organization  at  Lac-qui-Parle.  By 
this  order,  the  limits  of  the  Presbytery  of  Dakota  be- 
came the  churches  and  ministers  among1  the  Dakota 
Indians.  It  is  the  only  Presbytery  in  existence,  with- 
out any  geographical  boundaries.  At  present,  there: 
are  seventeen  ordained  Indian  ministers  upon  the  roll 
of  this  presbytery — workmen  of  whom  neither  they 
themselves  nor  any  others  have  any  cause  to  be.  asham- 
ed. There  are,  also,  under  its  care,  twenty-eight  well- 
organized  churches,  aggregating  more  than  fifteen 
hundred  communicants,  and  eight  hundred  Sabbath- 
School  members.  The  contributions  of  these  fifteen 
hundred  Dakota  Presbyterians  in  1904,  exceeded  the 
sum  of  six  thousand  dollars  for  all  religious  purposes. 

Among  the  "Dispersed"  of  the  Sioux  nation,  in 
Manitoba,  there  is  one  organized  Presbyterian  church 
of  twenty-five  communicant  members.  It  is  the 
church  of  Beulah  and  is  in  connection  with  the  Pres- 
byterian church  of  Canada. 

In  all,  twenty-one  Sioux  Indians  have  been  ordained 
to  the  Presbyterian  ministry,  by  the  Presbytery  of  Da- 
kota. Of  these.  Artemas  Ehnamane,  Titus  Icaduze, 
Joseph  Iron  Door,  and  John  Baptiste  Renville  have  all 
passed  on,  from  the  beautiful  prairies  of  the  Dakotas, 
to  the  celestial  plains  of  glory.  And  how  warm  must 
have  been  their  greeting  as  they  passed  through  the 
pearly  gates  of  the  city,  whose  builder  and  maker  is 
God.  Gideon  Pond,  Dr.  Williamson,  Samuel  W. 
Pond,  Stephen  R.  Riggs  and  Robert  Hopkins,  Mar- 
garet Williamson,  Mary  Riggs  and  Aunt  Jane  and  Qth- 


5,o  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

er  faithful  missionaries  and  thousands  of  redeemed  Da- 
kotas,  welcomed  them,  with  glad  hozannas,  and  sweet 
are  the  songs  they  sing  as  they  walk  together,  under 
the  trees,  on  the  banks  of  the  River  of  Life. 

The  Dakota  Congregational  association  has  under  its 
care  thirteen  organized  churches,  with  more  than  one 
thousand  communicants  and  one  thousand  Sabbath 
school  members.  The  prominent  leaders  of  its  work 
are  Alfred  L.  Riggs  D.D.,  of  Santee,  Nebraska,  and 
Rev.  Thomas  L.  Riggs  of  Oahe,  South  Dakota.  They 
are  the  worthy  sons  of  their  famous  father,  Stephen  R. 
Riggs,  D.D.,  one  of  the  heroic  pioneers  in  the  Dako- 
ta work.  The  native  ministers  are  Francis  Frazier, 
Edwin  Phelps,  James  Garvie,  James  Wakutamani  and 
Elias  Gilbert.  This  association  is  a  mighty  factor  in 
God's  plan,  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  Dakotas,  in  the 
things  that  are  noble  and  of  good  report. 

The  Presbyterian  and  Congregationalists  have 
wrought  together,  side  by  side,  for  seventy  years,  in 
this  glorious  enterprise.  Under  their  auspices,  forty- 
four  churches,  many  schools  and  other  beneficent  or- 
ganizations are  in  efficient  operation  among  these  for- 
mer savage  dwellers  on  these  plains. 

Seven  other  natives  have,  also,  been  ordained  to  the 
priesthood  in  the  Episcopal  Church,  making  thirty- 
three  in  all,  who  have  served  their  fellow-tribesmen  in 
the  high  and  holy  office  of  the  Christian  ministry. 
There  is  not  a  single  ordained  Romish  priest  among  the 
Sioux  Indians. 

"Watchman,  tell  us  of  the  night, 
What  its  signs  of  promise  are." 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  51 

Seventy  years  ago,  among  the  twenty-five  thousand 
Sioux  Indians  in  the  United  States,  there  was  not  a 
single  church,  not  even  one  professing  Christian. 

They  were  all  polytheistic  pagans.  There  were 
signs  of  pagan  worship  about  every  teepee.  It  might 
be  the  medicine  sack  tied  behind  the  conical  wigwam, 
or  a  yard  of  broadcloth,  floating  from  the  top  of  a  flag- 
pole as  a  sacrifice  to  some  deity.  There  was  more  or 
less  idol-worship  in  all  their  gatherings.  One  of  the 
simplest  forms  was  the  holding  of  a  well-filled  pipe  at 
arm's  length,  with  the  mouth-piece  upward,  while  the 
performers  said,  "O  Lord,  take  a  smoke  and  have  mer- 
cy on  me."  In  the  feasts  and  dances,  the  forms  were 
more  elaborate.  The  Sun-dance  continued  for  days  of 
fasting  and  sacrificial  work  by  the  participants. 

Now  these  signs  of  pagan  worship  have  almost  en- 
tirely disappeared  among  the  Dakotas.  These  facts 
speak  volumes — one  in  eight  of  the  Dakotas  is  a  Pres- 
byterian. There  are  two-thirds  as  many  Congrega- 
tional ists,  twice  as  many  Episcopalians  and  twice  as 
many  Catholics.  More  than  one-half  of  the  Dakotas 
have  been  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Triune  God 
and  thousands  of  them  are  professed  followers  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Now  what  has  wrought  this  great  change  among  the 
Dakotas?  It  was  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the 
Lord,  working  through  the  means  of  grace  as  employ- 
ed and  applied  by  these  faithful  missionaries.  They 
renounced  heathenism,  not  because  the  government  so 
ordered,  but  because  they  found  that  there  was  no 


52  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

(jrod  like  Jehovah  and  Jehovah  said,  "Thou  shalt  have 
no  other  gods  before  me."  Even  those  who  have  not 
accepted  Christ  have  generally  cast  away  their  idols. 

Now  do  missions  pay?  Do  Indian  missions  pay? 
Let  the  grand  work  among  the  Dakotas  and  its  glo- 
rious results  be  an  all  sufficient  answer.  It  does  pay 
a  thousand  fold. 

Hear  the  Christian  tribesmen  sing  the  Hymn  of  the 
Sioux. 

Lift  aloft  the  starry  banner, 

Let  it  wave  o'er  land  and  sea ; 
Shout  aloud  and  sing  hosanna ! 

Praise  the  Lord,  who  set  us  free ! 
Here  we  stand  amazed  and  wonder 

Such  a  happy  change  to  see ; 
The  bonds  of  sin  are  burst  asunder ! 

Praise  the  Lord  who  set  us  free. 
Long  we  lay  in  darkness  pining, 

Not  a  ray  of  hope  had  we ! 
Now  the  Gospel  Sun  is  shining: 

Praise  the  Lord  who  set  us  free. 
In  one  loud  and  joyful  chorus, 

Heart  and  soul  now  join  will  we; 
Salvation's  Sun  is  shining  o'er  us ! 

Praise  the  Lord  who  set  us  free. 


PART  II. 

SOME  SIOUX  STORIETTES 


Part  II 


CONTENTS 


SOME  SIOUX  STORIETTES. 

I.  The  Dead  Papoose. — The  Maiden's  Feast. 

II.  Grand  Mother  Pond. — Oak  Grove  Mission. 

III.  Anpetuzapawin. — A  Legend  of  St  Anthony  Falls. 

IV.  Aunt  Jane — the  Red  Song  Woman. 

V.  Artemas — the  Warrior-Preafcher. 

VI.  Two   Famous  Missions — Lake   Harriet  and  Prairieville. 

VII.  The  Prince  of  Indian  Preachers. 

VIII.  An  Indian  Patriarch. 

IX.  John — the  Beloved  of  the  Sioux  Nation. 

X.  The  Martyrs  of  Old  St.  Joe. 


THE  DEAD  PAPOOSE 

The  Indian  mother,  when  her  child  dies,  does  not 
believe  that  swift  angels  bear  it  into  the  glorious  sun- 
shine of  the  spirit-land ;  but  she  has  a  beautiful  dream 
to  solace  her  bereavement.  The  cruel  empty  places, 
which  everywhere  meet  the  eye  of  the  weeping  white 
mother,  are  unknown  to  her,  for  to  her  tender  fancy 
a  little  spirit-child  fills  them. 

It  is  not  a  rare  sight  to  see  a  pair  of  elaborate  tiny 
moccasins  above  a  little  Indian  grave.  A  mother's 
fingers  have  embroidered  them,  a  mother's  hand  has 
hung  them  there,  to  help  the  baby's  feet  over  the  long 
rough  road  that  stretches  between  his  father's  wig- 
wam and  the  Great  Chief's  happy  hunting  grounds. 

Indians  believe  that  a  baby's  spirit  cannot  reach  the 
spirit-land  until  the  child,  if  living,  would  have  been 
old  enough  and  strong  enough  to  walk.  Until  that 
time  the  little  spirit  hovers  about  its  mother.  And  of- 
ten it  grows  tired — oh  so  very  tired!  So  the  tendei 
mother  carries  a  papoose's  cradle  on  her  back  that 
the  baby  spirit  may  ride  and  rest  when  it  will.  The 
cradle  is  filled  with  the  softest  feathers;  for  the  spirit 
rests  more  comfortably  upon  soft  things — hard  things 
bruise  it — and  all  the  papoose's  old  toys  dangle  from 
the  crib,  for  the  dead  papoose  may  love  to  play  even  as 
•he  living  papoose  did. 


THE  MAIDENS'  FEAST 

Of  the  many  peculiar  customs  of  the  Indians  in 
the  long  ago,  perhaps  the  most  unique  was  the  annual 
"feast  of  Maidens."  One  was  given  at  Fort  Ellis. 
Manitoba,  some  thirty  years  ago,  in  a  natural  amphi- 
theatre, surrounded  by  groves,  fully  one  thousand  feet 
above  the  Assiniboine  River. 

It  was  observed  at  a  reunion  of  the  Sioux,  and  of 
the  Assiniboines  and  the  Crees,  three  -friendly  tribes. 

In  his  '"'Indian  Boyhood,"  that  brilliant  Sioux  auth- 
or, Dr.  Charles  Alexander  Eastman,  great-grandson  of 
Cloudman  or  Man-of-the-sky,  that  potential  friend  of 
the  missionaries  in  pioneer  days  at  Lake  Calhoun, 
graphically  describes  it  thus : — 

"One  bright  summer  morning,  while  we  were  still 
at  our  meal  of  jerked  buffalo  meat,  we  heard  the  her- 
ald of  the  Wahpeton  band  upon  his  calico  pony  as  he 
rode  round  our  circle. 

"White  Eagle's  daughter,  the  maiden  Red  Star,  in- 
vites all  the  maidens  of  all  the  tribes  to  come  and  par- 
take of  her  feast.  It  will  be  in  the  Wahpeton  Camp, 
before  the  sun  reaches  the  middle  of  the  sky.  All  pure 
maidens  are  invited.  Red  Star,  also,  invites  the  young 
men  to  be  present,  to  see  that  no  unworthy  maiden 
should  join  in  the  feast." 

The  herald  soon  completed  the  rounds  of  the  differ- 
ent camps,  and  it  was  not  long  before  the  girls  began 
to  gather.  It  was  regarded  as  a  semi-sacred  feast. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  61 

It  would  be  desecration  for  any  to  attend,  who  was 
not  perfectly  virtuous.  Hence  it  was  regarded  as 
an  opportune  time  for  the  young  men  to  satisfy  them- 
selves as  to  who  were  the  virtuous  maids  of  the  tribe. 

There  were  apt  to  be  surprises  before  the  end  of 
the  day.  Any  young  man  was  permitted  to  challenge 
any  maiden,  whom  he  knew  to  be  untrue.  But  woe 
to  him,  who  could  not  prove  his  case.  It  meant  little 
short  of  death  to  the  man,  who  endeavored  to  dis- 
grace a  woman  without  cause. 

From  the  various  camps,  the  girls  came  singly  or  in 
groups,  dressed  in  bright  colored  calicoes  or  in  heavily 
fringed  and  beaded  buckskin.  Their  smooth  cheeks 
and  the  center  of  their  glossy  hair  was  touched  with 
vermillion.  All  brought  with  them  wooden  basins  to 
eat  from.  Some  who  came  from  a  considerable  dis- 
tance were  mounted  upon  ponies ;  a  few  for  company 
or  novelty's  sake  rode  double. 

The  maidens'  circle  was  formed  about  a  cone- 
shaped  rock,  which  stood  upon  its  base.  This  was 
painted  red.  Beside  it,  two  new  arrows  were  lightly 
stuck  into  the  ground.  This  is  a  sort  of  altar,  to 
which  each  maiden  comes  before  taking  her  assigned 
place  in  the  circle,  and  lightly  touches  first  the  stone 
and  then  the  arrows.  By  this  oath,  she  declares  her 
purity.  Whenever  a  girl  approaches  the  altar  there 
is  a  stir  among  the  spectators  and  sometimes  a  rude 
youth  would  call  out:  "Take  care!  you  will  overturn 
the  rock  or  pull  out  the  arrows !" 


62  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Immediately  behind  the  maidens'  circle  is  the  chap- 
erons' circle.  This  second  circle  is  almost  as  interest- 
ing to  look  at  as  the  inner  one. 

The  old  women  watched  every  movement  of  their 
respective  charges  with  the  utmost  concern.  There 
was  never  a  more  gorgeous  assembly  of  its  kind  than 
this  one.  The  day  was  perfect.  The  Crees,  display- 
ing their  characteristic  horsemanship,  came  in  groups ; 
the  Assiniboines  with  their  curious  pompadour  well 
covered  with  red  paint.  The  various  bands  of  Sioux 
all  carefully  observed  the  traditional  peculiarities  of 
dress  and  behavior. 

The  whole  population  of  the  region  had  assembled 
and  the  maidens  came  shyly  into  the  circle.  During 
the  simple  preparatory  rites,  there  was  a  stir  of  excite- 
ment among  a  group  of  Wahpeton  Sioux  young  men. 
All  the  maidens  glanced  nervously  toward  the  scene 
of  the  disturbance.  Soon  a  tall  youth  emerged  from 
the  throng  of  spectators  and  advanced  toward  the 
circle.  With  a  steady  step,  he  passed  by  the  chaper- 
ons, and  approached  the  maidens'  circle. 

At  last,  he  stopped  behind  a  pretty  Assiniboine 
maiden  of  good  family  and  said: 

"I  am  sorry,  but  according  to  custom,  you  should 
not  be  here." 

The  girl  arose  in  confusion,  but  she  soon  recovered 
her  control. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  demanded  indignantly. 
''Three  times  you  have  come  to  court  me,  but  each 
time  I  have  refused  to  listen  to  you.  I  have  turned 
my  back  upon  you.  Twice  I  was  with  Washtinna. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  63 

She  can  'tell  the  people  that  this  is  true.  The  third 
time  I  had  gone  for  water  when  you  intercepted  me 
and  begged  me  to  stop  and  listen.  I  refused  because 
I  did  not  know  you.  My  chaperon  Makatopawee 
knows  I  was  gone  but  a  few  minutes.  I  never  saw 
you  anywhere  else." 

The  young  man  was  unable  to  answer  this  unmis- 
takable statement  of  facts  and  it  became  apparent  that 
he  had  sought  to  revenge  himself  for  her  repulse. 

"Woo !  Woo !  Carry  him  out !"  was  the  order  of  the 
Chief  of  the  Indian  police,  and  the  audacious  youth 
was  hurried  away  into  the  nearest  ravine  to  be  chas- 
tised. 

The  young  woman  who  had  thus  established  her 
good  name  returned  to  the  circle  and  the  feast  was 
served.  The  "maidens'  song"  was  sung,  and  four 
times  they  danced  in  a  ring  around  the  altar. 

Each  maid,  as  she  departed,  took  her  oath  to  remain 
pure  until  she  should  meet  her  husband. 


II 

GRANDMOTHER  POND. 

Grandmother  Pond  is  one  of  the  rarest  spirits,  one 
of  the  loveliest  characters  in  Minnesota.  She  is  the 
last  living  link  between  the  past  and  the  present — be- 
tween that  heroic  band  of  pioneer  missionaries  who 
came  to  Minnesota  prior  to  1844,  and  those  who  join- 
ed the  ranks  of  this  glorious  missionary  service  in 
more  recent  years.  Her  life  reads  like  a  romance. 

Agnes  Carson  Johnson  Pond  is  a  native  of  Ohio — 
born  at  Greenfield  in  1825.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
William  Johnson,  a  physician  and  surgeon  of  Chilli- 
cothe,  Ohio.  By  the  death  of  her  father  she  was  left 
an  orphan  at  five  years  of  age.  Her  mother  married 
a  worthy  minister  of  the  Associate  Reformed  Presby- 
ian  church,  Rev.  John  McDill.  She  had  superior  ed- 
ucational and  social  advantages  and  made  good  use 
of  all  her  opportunities.  She  was  educated  at  a  semi- 
nary at  South  Hanover,  Indiana.  There  she  met  her 
future  husband,  Robert 'Hopkins.  He,  as  well  as  she. 
was  in  training  for  service  on  mission  fields.  They 
were  married  in  1843.  He  had  already  been  appointed 
as  a  missionary  teacher  for  the  Sioux  Indians.  The 
young  wife  was  compelled  to  make  her  bridal  tour  in 
the  company  of  strangers,  by  boat  and  stage  and  pri- 
vate conveyance  from  Ohio  to  the  then  unknown  land 
of  the  upper  Mississippi.  It  required  thirty  days  then, 
instead  of  thirty  hours,  as  now,  to  pass  from  Ohio  to 
the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony.  The  bride-groom  drove 
his  own  team  from  Galena,  Illinois,  to  Fort  Snelling. 


GRANDMOTHER  POND, 

The  Last  Living  Member  of  the  Heroic  Band  of  Pion- 
eer Missionaries  to  the  Dakotas,  in  the  8ist 
Year  of  Her  Age. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  65 

HER    HUSBAND   DROWNED. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hopkins  were  first  stationed  at  Lac- 
qui-Parle.  After  one  year  they  were  transferred  to 
Traverse  des  Sioux,  near  the  present  site  of  S£  Peter, 
Minnesota.  Here  they  gave  seven  years  of  the  most 
faithful,  devoted,  self-sacrificing  toil  for  the  lost  and 
degraded  savages  around  them.  They  built  a  humble 
home  and  established  and  maintained  a  mission  school. 
Five  children  were  born  to  them  there.  Two  of  these 
were  early  called  to  the  celestial  home  on  high.  Their 
life  at  Traverse  des  Sioux  was  a  strenuous,  isolated, 
but  a  fruitful  and  happy  one.  It  was  destined,  how- 
ever, to  a  speedy  and  tragic  end. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  July  4,  1851,  Mr.  Hopkins 
entered  the  river  for  a  bath.  He  was  never  seen  alive 
again.  A  treacherous  swirl  in  the  water  at  that  point 
suddenly  carried  him  to  his  death.  His  wife  waited 
long  the  carefully  prepared  morning  meal,  but  her  be- 
loved came  not  again.  He  went  up  through  the  great 
flood  of  waters  from  arduous  service  on  the  banks  of 
the  beautiful  Minnesota  to  his  glorious  rewards  on 
the  banks  of  the  still  more  beautiful  River  of  Life. 

Broken-hearted,  the  young  wife,  only  twenty-six 
years  of  age,  laid  him  to  rest  on  the  banks  of  the  river 
whose  treacherous  waves  had  robbed  her  of  her  life 
companion.  Sadly  she  closed  her  home  in  Minneso- 
ta and,  with  her  three  little  fatherless  children,  re- 
turned to  her  old  home  in  far-distant  Ohio. 

Rev.  Robert  Hopkins  enjoyed  the  full  confidence  of 
his  colleagues  and  was  greatly  beloved  by  the  Indians. 
His  untimely  death  was  an  irreparable  loss  to  the  mis- 
sion work  among-  the  Sioux. 


<>6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

SECOND  BRIDAL  TOUR  TO   THE   WEST. 

Shortly  after  the  tragedy  at  Traverse  des  Sioux, 
Mrs.  Sarah  Poage  Pond,  wife  of  Rev.  Gideon  H.  Pond, 
died  at  Oak  Grove  Mission  of  consumption.  In  1854 
Mr.  Pond  visited  Ohio,  where  he  and  Mrs.  Hopkins 
were  united  in  marriage.  She  made  a  second  bridal 
tcur  from  Ohio  to  Minnesota,  and  foiled  by  his  side 
till  his  death  in  1878. 

In  every  relation  in  life  in  which  she  has  been 
placed,  Mrs.  Pond  has  excelled.  While  she  long  ago 
ceased  from  active  service  in  mission  fields,  she  ever 
has  been,  and  still  is  untiring  in  her  efforts  to  do  good 
to  all  as  she  has  opportunity.  She  is  strong  and  vig- 
orous at  the  age  of  eighty.  She  still  resides  at  the 
Oak  Grove  Mission  house,  her  home  since  1857,  uni- 
versally beloved  and  regarded  as  the  best  woman  in  the 
world  by  about  one  hundred  descendants. 


JOHN  P.  WILLIAMSON,  D.  D., 

Superintendent  of  Presbyterian  Sioux  Missions. 
ty-five  years  a  missionary  to  the  Sioux. 


For- 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  67 

OAK  GROVE  MISSION  HOUSE. 

This  old  land  mark  is  located  in  Hennepin  County, 
Minnesota,  twelve  miles  southwest  of  Minneapolis. 
Here  in  1843,  Gilbert  H.  Pond  established  his  head- 
quarters as  a  missionary  to  the  Sioux  Indians.  He 
erected  a  large  log  building  in  which  he  resided, 
taught  school  and  preached  the  gospel.  Here,  in  1848, 
the  Presbytery  of  Dakota  convened,  and  ordained  Mr. 
Pond  and  Robert  Hopkins  to  the  Presbyterian  minis- 
try. For  many  years  it  was  the  sole  source  of  social, 
moral,  and  spiritual  light  for  a  wide  region  for  both 
races.  It  was  also  the  favorite  gathering  place  of 
the  Indians  for  sport.  In  1852,  a  great  game  of  ball 
was  played  here.  Good  Road  and  Grey  Iron  joined 
their  followers  with  Cloudman's  band  of  Lake  Cal- 
houn  in  opposition  to  Little  Six  and  his  band  from 
Shakopay.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  men  and  boys  par- 
ticipated in  the  game,  while  two  hundred  and  fifty 
others  were  deeply  interested  spectators.  The  game 
lasted  for  three  days  and  was  won  by  Cloudman  and 
his  allies.  Forty-six  hundred  dollars  in  ponies,  blank- 
ets and  other  such  property  changed  hands  on  the  re- 
sults. 

In  1856,  the  present  commodious  residence  was  e- 
rected  of  brick  manufactured  on  the  premises.  For 
twenty-one  years  it  was  the  residence  of  Rev.  Gideon 
Hollister  Pond.  He  was  for  twenty  years,  also,  pas- 
tor of  the  white  Presbyterian  church  of  Oak  Grove 
He  was  a  member  of  the  first  territorial  legislature; 
the  editor  of  the  "The  Dakota  Friend"  the  first  re- 


tvS  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

ligious  journal  published  in  the  state,  and  he  was  also 
the  first  preacher  of  the  gospel  in  the  city  of  Minne- 
apolis. 

In  whatever  position  he  was  placed  in  life,  he  ever 
proved  himself  to  be  a  wise,  conscientious,  consecrated 
Christian  gentleman.  "None  knew  him,  but  to  love 
him;  none  knew  him,  but  to  praise.  He  was  born  in 
Connecticut,  June  thirtieth,  1810,  and  on  the  twentieth 
of  January,  1878,  he  passed  from  his  Oak  Grove  Mis- 
sion Home  through  the  gates  of  the  celestial  city,  to 
go  no  more  out.  They  laid  him  to  rest  in  the  midst 
of  the  people,  whom  he  had  loved  and  served  so  well 
for  four  and  forty  years  and  by  whom  he  was  univers- 
ally beloved  and  admired.  None  were  more  sincere  in 
their  demonstrations  of  sorrow  than  the  little  company 
of  Dakotas  to  whom  he  had  been  a  more  than  father. 


Ill 

ANPETUSAPAWIN 

A  Legend  of  St.  Anthony  Falls 

Long  ere  the  white  man's  bark  had  seen 
These  flower-decked  prairies,  fair  and  wide, 
Long  ere  the  white  man's  bark  had  been 
Borne  on  the  Mississippi's  tide, 
So  long  ago,  Dakotas  say, 
Anpetusapawin  was  born, 
Her  eyes  beheld  these  scenes  so  gay 
First  opening  on  life's  rosy  morn. 

— S.  W.  Pond. 

In  the  long  ago,  a  young  Indian  brave  espoused  as 
his  wife  this  Indian  maiden  of  whom  the  poet  sings. 
With  her  he  lived  happily  for  a  few  years,  in  the  en- 
joyment of  every  comfort  of  which  a  savage  life  is 
capable.  To  crown  their  happiness,  they  were  bless- 
ed with  two  lovely  children  on  whom  they  doted. 
During  this  time,  by  a  dint  of  activity  and  persever- 
ance in  the  chase,  he  became  signalized  in  an  eminent 
degree  as  a  hunter,  having  met  with  unrivaled  success 
in  the  pursuit  and  capture  of  the  wild  denizens  of  the 
forest.  This  circumstance  contributed  to  raise  him 
high  in  the  estimation  of  his  fellow  savages  and  drew 
a  crowd  of  admiring  friends  around.  This  operated 
as  a  spur  to  his  ambitions. 

At  length  some  of  his  newly  acquired  friends  sug- 
gested to  him  the  propriety  of  taking  another  wife,  as 
it  would  be  impossible  for  one  woman  to  manage  the 
affairs  of  his  household  and  properly  wait  upon  the 


;o  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

many  guests  his  rising  importance  would  call  to  visit 
him.  They  intimated  to  him  that  in  all  probability  he 
would  soon  be  elevated  to  the  chieftainship.  His  van- 
ity was  fired  by  the  suggestion.  He  yielded  readily 
and  accepted  a  wife  they  had  already  selected  for  him. 

After  his  second  marriage,  he  sought  to  take  his 
new  wife  home  and  reconcile  his  first  wife  to  the  match 
in  the  most  delicate  manner  possible.  To  this  end  he 
returned  to  his  first  wife,  as  yet  ignorant  of  what  had 
occurred,  and  endeavored,  by  dissimulation,  to  secure 
her  approval. 

"You  know,"  said  he,  "I  can  love  no  one  as  I  love 
you ;  yet  I  see  your  labors  are  too  great  for  your  pow- 
ers of  endurance.  Your  duties  are  daily  becoming 
more  and  more  numerous  and  burdensome.  This 
grieves  me  sorely.  But  I  know  of  only  one  remedy  by 
which  you  can  be  relieved.  These  considerations  con- 
strain me  to  take  another  wife.  This  wife  shall  be 
under  your  control  in  every  respect  and  ever  second  to 
you  in  my  affections."  She  listened  to  his  narrative  in 
painful  anxiety  and  endeavored  to  reclaim  him  from 
his  wicked  purpose,  refuting  all  his  sophistry  bv 
expressions  of  her  unaffected  conjugal  affection.  He 
left  her  to  meditate.  She  became  more  industrious 
and  treated  him  more  tenderly  than  before.  She  tried 
every  means  in  her  power  to  disuade  him  from  the  ex- 
ecution of  his  vile  purpose.  She  pleaded  all  the  en- 
dearments of  their  former  happy  life,  the  regard  he 
had  for  her  happiness  and  that  of  the  offspring  of 
their  mutual  love  to  prevail  on  him  to  relinquish  the 
idea  of  marrvinsf  another  wife.  He  then  informed  her 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  71 

of  the  fact  of  his  marriage  and  stated  that  compliance 
on  her  part  would  be  actually  necessary.  She  must  re- 
ceive the  new  wife  into  their  home.  She  was  determ- 
ined, however,  not  to  be  the  passive  dupe  of  his  du- 
plicity. With  her  two  children  she  returned  to  her  pa- 
rental teepee.  In  the  autumn  she  joined  her  friends 
and  kinsmen  in  an  expedition  up  the .  Mississippi  and 
spent  the  winter  in  hunting.  In  the  springtime,  as 
they  were  returning,  laden  wijth  peltries,  she  and  her 
children  occupied  a  canoe  by  themselves.  On  nearing 
the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony  she  lingered  in  the  rear  till 
the  others  had  landed  a  little  above  the  falls. 

She  then  painted  hejrself  and  children,  paddled  her 
canoe  into  the  swift  current  of  the  rapids  and  began 
chanting  her  death  song,  in  which  she  recounted  her 
former  happy  life,  with  her  husband,  when  she  enjoyed 
his  undivided  affection,  and  the  wretchedness,  in  which 
?he  was  now  involved  by  his  infidelity.  Her  friends, 
alarmed  at  her  imminent  peril,  ran  to  the  shore  and 
begged  her  to  paddle  out  of  the  current  before  it  was 
too  late,  while  her  parents,  rending  their  clothing  and 
tearing  their  hair,  besought  her  to  come  to  their  arms 
of  love;  but  all  in  vain.  Her  wretchedness  was  com- 
plete and  must  terminate  with  her  existence!  She 
continued  her  course  till  her  canoe  was  borne  head- 
long down  the  roaring  cataract,  and  it  and  the  deserted, 
heartbroken  wife  and  the  beautiful  and  innocent  chil- 
dren, were  dashed  to  pieces  on  the  rocks  below.  No- 
traces  of  the  canoe  or  its  occupants  were  found.  Her 
brothers  avenged  her  death  by  slaying  the  treacherous 
husband  of  the  deserted  wife. 

They  say  that  still  that  song  is  heard 

Above  the  mighty  torrent's  roar, 
When  trees  are  by  the  night-wind  stirred 

And  darkness  broods  on  stream  and  shore. 


IV 

AUNT  JANE 

The  Red  Song  Woman 

Miss  Jane  Smith  Williamson,  the  subject  of  this 
sketch,  was  one  of  the  famous  missionary  women  in 
our  land  in  the  nineteenth  century.  She  was  widely 
known  among  both  whites  and  Indians  as  "Aunt  Jane." 
The  Dakotas  also  called  her  "Red  Song  Woman." 
She  was  born  at  Fair  Forest,  South  Carolina,  March  8, 
1803.  Through  her  father  she  was  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  Rev.  John  Newton  and  Sir  Isaac  Newton. 
Her  father  was  a  revolutionary  soldier. 

Her  mother  was  Jane  (Smith)  Williamson.  They 
believed  that  negroes  had  souls  and  therefore  treated 
the  twenty-seven  slaves  they,  had  inherited  like  human 
beings.  Her  mother  was  fined  in  South  Carolina,  for 
teaching  her  slaves  to  read  the  Bible.  Consequently, 
in  1804,  in  her  early  infancy,  her  parents  emigrated 
to  Adams  county,  Ohio,  in  order  to  be  able  to  free 
their  slaves  and  teach  them  to  read  the  Word  of  God 
and  write  legibly. 

The  story  of  Aunt  Jane's  life  naturally  falls  into 
three  divisions. 

I PREPARATION   FOR   HER   GREAT   LIFE   WORK. 

This  covered  forty  years.  She  grew  up  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  sincere  and  deep  piety  and  of  devotion  to 
Christian  principles.  Her  early  educational  advanta- 
<*-es  were  necessarilv  limited,  but  she  made  the  most  of 

o  ^ 

Ihem.       She  became  very  accurate  in  the  use  of  Ian- 


AUNT  JANE, 
Or,  The  Red  Song  Woman. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  73 

guage,  wrote  a  clear  round  hand  and  was  very  thor- 
ough in  everything  she  studied.  She  was  a  great 
reader  of  good  and  useful  books,  possessed  an  excel- 
lent memory  and  a  lively  imagination  and  very  early 
acquired  a  most  interesting  style  of  composition. 

From  her  ancestors  she  inherited  that  strong  sym- 
pathy for  the  colored  race,  which  was  a  marked  char- 
acteristic of  her  whole  life.  In  her  young  womanhood, 
she  taught  private  schools  in  Adams  county,  Ohio. 
The  progress  made  by  her  pupils  was  very  rapid  and 
her  instruction  was  of  a  high  order.  She  sought  out 
the  children  of  the  poor  and  taught  them  without 
charge.  She  admitted  colored  pupils  as  well  as  whites. 
For  this  cause,  many  threats  of  violence  were  made  a- 
gainst  her  school.  But  she  was  such  an  excellent  teach- 
er that  her  white  pupils  remained  with  her;  and  a 
guard  of  volunteer  riflemen  frequently  surrounded  her 
school  house.  She  calmly  pursued  the  even  tenor  of 
her  way. 

In  1820,  when  she  was  only  17  years  of  age,  she  and 
her  brother  rode  on  horseback  all  the  way  from  Man- 
chester, Ohio,  to  South  Carolina  and  back  again,  and 
brought  with  them  two  slaves  they  had  inherited. 
They  could  have  sold  them  in  the  South  for  $300 
each,  and  stood  in  great  need  of  the  money;  but  in- 
stead, they  gave  to  these  two  poor 'colored  persons  the 
priceless  boon  of  liberty.  Miss  Williamson's  slave 
was  a  young  woman  of  her  own  age,  called  Jemima. 
She  was  married  to  another  slave  named  Logan.  She 
was  the  mother  of  two  children.  Logan  was  a  daring 
man.  and  rendered  desperate  by  the  loss  of  his  young 


74  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

wife,  he  determined  tc  be  free  and  follow  her.  He  fled 
from  South  Carolina,  and  after  passing  through  many 
adventures  of  the  most  thrilling  character,  he  found 
his  wife  in  Ohio,  and  lived  and  died  a  free  man,  He 
was  fully  determined  to  die  rather  than  return  to 
slavery.  Jemima  lived  to  a  great  age,  surviving  her 
husband;  who  was  killed  accidcntly  in  the  fifties. 
They  left  a  family  highly  respected. 

During  all  these  years  "Aunt  Jane"  was  a  very  act- 
ive worker  in  Sabbath  schools,  prayer  meetings  and 
missionary  societies.  In  her  own  day  schools,  she 
made  religious  worship  and  Bible  Study  a  prominent 
feature  of  the  exercises.  In  1835,  when  her  brother. 
Dr.  Williamson,  went  as  a  missionary  to  the  Dakotas, 
she  strongly  desired  to  accompany  him.  But  her  duty 
required  her  to  remain  at  home  and  care  for  her  aged 
father,  who  died  in  1839,  at  the  age  of  77.  She  did 
not  join  her  brother,  however,  until  1843,  at  tne  a£e 
of  forty. 

II — HER  WORK  AMONG  THE  DAKOTAS. 

This  covers  one-third  of  a  century.  The  missionary 
spirit  was  a  part  of  her  life, — born  with  her, — a  herit- 
age of  several  generations.  The  blood  of  the  Newtons 
flowed  in  her  vein?.  When  she  arrived  in  Minnesota, 
she  went  to  work  without  delay  and  with  great  energy 
and  with  untiring  industry  greatly  beyond  her 
strength.  She  was  very  familiar  with  the  Bible. 
She  taught  hundreds  of  Indians,  perhaps  fully  one 
thousand,  to  read  the  Word  of  God,  and  the  greater 
part  of  them  tc  write  a  legible  letter.  She  visited  all 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  75 

the  sick  within  her  reach,  and  devoted  much  of  her 
time  to  instructing  the  Dakota  women  in  domestic  du- 
ties. She  conducted  prayer  meetings  and  conversed 
with  them  in  reference  to  the  salvation  of  their  souls. 
Many  of  them,  saved  by  the  Holy  Spirit's  benediction 
upon  her  self-denying  efforts,  are  now  shining1  like 
bright  gems  in  her  crown  of  glory  on  high. 

Lac-qtti-Parle, — the  Lake-that-speaks, — two  hun- 
dred miles  west  of  St.  Paul,,  was  her  first  missionary 
home.  There  she  gathered  the  young  Indians  togeth- 
er and  taught  them  as  opportunity  offered.  The  in- 
struction of  the  youth — especially  the  children,  of 
whom  she  was  ever  a  devoted  lover,  was  her  great  de- 
light. • 

It  was  more  than  a  year  before  any  mail  reached  her 
at  this  remote  outpost.  She  was  absent  in  the  Indian 
village  when  she  heard  of  the  arrival  of  her  first  mail. 
She.  in  her  eagerness  to  hear  from  her  friends  in  Ohio, 
ran  like  a  young  woman  to  her  brother's  house.  She 
found  the  mail  in  the  stove-oven.  The  carrier  had 
brought  it  through  the  ice,  and  it  had  to  be  thawed 
out.  That  mail  contained  more  than  fifty  letters  for 
htr  and  the  postage  on  them  was  over  five  dollars  In 
1846,  she  removed  with  her  brother  to  Kaposia,  Little 
Crow's  village  (now  South  St.  Paul),  and  in  1852  to 
Yellow  Medicine,  thirty-two  miles  south  of  Lac-qui- 
Parle.  The  privations  of  the  missionaries  were  very 
great.  White  bread  was  more  of  a  luxury  to  them 
then,  than  rich  cake  ordinarily  is  now.  Their  houses 
and  furnishings  were  of  the  rudest  kind.  Their  en-r 
vironments  were  all  of  a  savage  character. 


76  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Their  trials  were  many  and  sore,  extreme  scarcity 
of  food  in  mid-winter,  savage  threats  and  bitter  in- 
sults. They  were  "in  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of 
waters,  of  robbers,  by  the  heathen  and  in  the  wilder- 
ness." All  this  she  endured  contentedly  for  Christ's 
sake  and  the  souls  of  the  poor  ignorant  savages  around 
for  the  evangelization  and  salvation  of  the  degraded 
Dakotas, — lost  in  sin. 

She  possessed  great  tact  and  was  absolutely  fearless. 
In  1857,  during  the  Inkpadoota  trouble,  the  father  of 
a  young  Indian,  who  had  been  wounded  by  the  soldiers 
of  Sherman's  battery,  came  with  his  gun  to  the  mis- 
sion house  to  kill  her  brother.  Aunt  Jane  met  him 
with  a  plate  of  food  for  himself  and  an  offer  to  send 
some  nice  dishes  to  the  wounded  young  man.  This 
was  effectual.  The  savage  was  tamed.  He  ate  the 
food  and  afterwards  came  with  his  son  to  give  them 
thanks.  Scarcely  was  the  prison-camp,  with  nearly 
four  hundred  Dakota  prisoners,  three-fourths  of  them 
condemned  to  be  hanged,  established  at  Mankato, 
when  Aunt  Jane  and  her  brother  came  to  distribute 
paper  and  pencils  and  some  books  among  them. 

When  their  lives  were  imperilled,  by  their  savage 
pursuers,  during  the  terrible  massacre,  Aunt  Jane 
calmly  said ;  ''Well  if  they  kill  me,  my  home  is  in 
Heaven."  The  churches  were  scattered,  the  work  ap- 
parently destroyed,  but  nothing  could  discourage 
Aunt  Jane.  She  had,  in  the  midst  of  this  great  trag- 
edy, the  satisfactory  knowledge  that  all  the  Christian 
Sioux  had  continued  at  the  risk  of  their  own  lives, 
steadfast  in  their  lovaltv,  and  had  been  instrumental  in 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  77 

saving  the  lives  of  many  whites.     They  had,  also,  in- 
fluenced for  good  many  of  their  own  race. 

TIT THE   CLOSING  YEARS  OF   HER   LIFE. 

After  that  terrible  massacre  the  way  never  opened 
for  her  to  resume  her  residence  among  the  Dakotas ; 
but  she  was  given  health  and  strength  for  nineteen 
years  more  toil  for  the  Master  and  her  beloved  Indians. 
Her  home  was  with  her  brother,  Dr.  Williamson, 
near  St.  Peter,  until  his  death  in  1879,  and  she  re- 
mained, in  his  old  home  several  years  after  his  death. 
During  this  period,  she  accomplished  much  for  the 
education  of  the  Indians  around  her  and  she  kept  up 
an  extensive  and  helpful  correspondence  with  native 
Christian  workers.  All  the  time  she  kept  up  the  work 
of  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others.  In  1881  she 
met  a  poor  Indian  woman,  suffering  extremely  from 
intense  cold.  She  slipped  off  her  own  warm  skirt  and 
gave  it  to  the  woman.  The  result  was  a  severe  illness, 
which  caused  her  partial  paralysis  and  total  blindness 
from  which  she  never  recovered.  In  1888  she  handed 
the  writer  a  $5  gold  coin  for  the  work  among  the 
freedmen  with  this  remark :  "First  the  freedman  ; 
then  the  Indian."  Out  of  a  narrow  income  she  con- 
stantly gave  generously  to  the  ^boards  of  the  church 
and  to  the  poor  around  her.  She  spent  most  of  her 
patrimony  in  giving  and  lending  to  needy  ones. 

The  closing  years  of  her  life  were  spent  with  her 
nephew  the  great  Indian  missionary  the  Rev.  John  P. 
Williamson  D.D.  at  Greenwood,  South  Dakota.  There 
at  noon  of  March  24,  1895,  the  light  of  eternity  dawn- 


;-8  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

ed  upon  her  and  she  entered  into  that  sabbattic  rest, 
which  remains  for  the  people  of  God.  Such  is  the 
story  of  Aunt  Jane,  modest  and  unassuming — a  real 
heroine,  who  travelled  sixteen  hundred  miles  all  the 
way  on  horseback  and  spent  several  months  that  she 
might  rescue  two  poor  colored  persons  whom  she  had 
never  seen  or  even  known. 

Without  husband  or  children,  alone  in  the  world, 
she  did  not  repine,  but  made  herself  useful,  wherever 
she  was,  in  teaching-  secular  learning  and  religious 
truth,  and  in  ministering  to  the  sick  and  afflicted,  the 
down-trodden  and  oppressed.  She  never  sought  to  d<"> 
any  wonderful  things, — but  whatever  her  hand  found 
ic  do,  she  did  it  with  her  might  and  with  an  eye  to  the 
honor  and  glory  of  God.  Hers  was  a  very  long  and 
most  complete  Christian  life.  Should  it  ever  be  for- 
gotten? Certainly  not,  while  our  Christian  religion 
endures. 

"Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord  from 
henceforth;  yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they  may  rest 
from  their  labors  and  their  works  do  follow  them." 

— Rev.  14:  13. 


ARTEMAS,  THE  WARRIOR  PREACHER 

He  was  one  of  the  fiercest  of  the  Sioux  warriors. 
He  fought  the  Ojibways  in  his  youth;  danced  the 
scalp-dance  on  the  present  site  of  Minneapolis,  and 
waged  war  against  the  whites  in  '62.  He  was  convert- 
ed at  Mankato,  Minnesota,  in  the  prison-pen,  and  for 
thirty-two  years,  he  was  pastor  of  the  Pilgrim  Congre- 
gational church  at  Santee,  Nebraska. 

Artemas  Ehnamane  was  born  in  1825,  at  Red  Wing, 
Minnesota,  by  the  mountain  that  stands  sentinel  at  the 
head  of  Lake  Pepin.  "Walking  Along"  is  the  Eng- 
lish translation  of  his  jaw-breaking  surname.  As  a 
lad,  he  played  on  the  banks  of  the  mighty  Mississip- 
pi. As  a  youth,  he  hunted  the  red  deer  in  the  lovely 
glades  of  Minnesota  and  Wisconsin.  He  soon  grew 
tall  and  strong  and  became  a  famous  hunter.  The 
war-path,  also,  opened  to  him  in  the  pursuit  of  his  he- 
reditary foes,  the  Chippewas.  He  danced  the  scalp- 
dance  on  the  present  site  of  Minneapolis,  when  it  was 
only  a  wind-swept  prairie. 

While  in  his  youth,  his  tribe  ceded  their  ancestral 
lands  along  the  Mississippi  and  removed  to  the  Sioux 
Reservation  on  the  Minnesota  River.  But  not  for 
long,  for  the  terrible  outbreak  of  1862,  scattered  ev- 
erything and  landed  all  the  leading  men  of  that  tribe 
in  prison.  Artemas  was  one  of  them.  He  was  con- 
victed, condemned  to  death,  and  pardoned  by  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  While  in  the  prison-pen  at  Mankatoj 


So  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

he  came  into  a  new  life  "that  thinketh  no  evil  of  hia 
neighbor."  The  words  of  the  faithful  missionaries, 
Pond  and  Williamson  and  Riggs,  sank  deep  into  his 
heart.  His  whole  nature  underwent  a  change.  Arte- 
mas  once  explained  his  conversion  thus : 

"We  had  planned  that  uprising  wisely  and  secretly. 
We  had  able  leaders.  We  were  well  organized  and 
thoroughly  armed.  The  whites  were  weakened  by  the 
Southern  war.  Everything  was  in  our  favor.  We 
had  prayed  to  our  gods.  But  when  the  conflict  came, 
we  were  beaten  so  rapidly  and  completely,  I  felt  tihat 
the  white  man's  God  must  be  greater  than  all  the  In- 
dians' gods;  and  I  determined  to  look  Him  up,  and  I 
found  Him,  All-Powerful  and  precious  to  my  soul." 

Faithfully  he  studied  his  letters  and  learned  his  Da- 
kota Bible,  which  became  more  precious  to  him  than 
any  record  of  traditions  and  shadows  handed  down 
from  mouth  to  mouth  by  his  people.  He  soon  became 
possessed  of  a  great  longing  to  let  his  tribe  know  his 
great  secret  of  the  God  above.  So  when  the  prison- 
ers were  restored  to  their  families  in  the  Missouri  Val- 
ly  in  Nebraska,  Artemas  was  soon  chosen  one  of  the 
preachers  of  the  reorganized  tribe.  His  first  pastorate 
was  that  of  the  Pilgrim  Congregational  Church  at 
Santee,  Nebraska,  in  1867.  It  was  also  his  last,  for 
he  was  ever  so  beloved  and  honored  by  his  people,  that 
they  would  not  consider  any  proposal  for  separation. 

No  such  proposition  ever  met  with  favor  in  the  Pil- 
grim Church  for  Artemas  firmly  held  first  place  in  the 
affections  of  the  people  among  whom  he  labored  so 
earnestlv.  He  served  this  church  for  thirty-two  vcars 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  81 

and  passed  on  to  take  his  place  among-  the  Shining 
Ones,  on  the  eve  of  Easter  Sabbath,  1902. 

Artemas  seldom  took  a  vacation.  In  fact  there  is 
cnly  one  on  record.  In  1872,  his  church  voted  a  va- 
cation of  six  weeks.  True  to  his  Indian  nature,  he 
planned  a  deer  hunt.  He  turned  his  footsteps  to 
the  wilds  of  the  Running  Water  (Niobrara  River), 
where  his  heart  grew  young  and  his  rifle  cracked  the 
death-knell  of  the  deer  and  antelope.  One  evening, 
in  the  track  of  the  hostile  Sioux  and  Pawnees,  he 
found  himself  near  a  camp  of  the  savage  Sicaugu.  He 
was  weak  and  alone.  They  were  strong  and  hostile. 

He  had  tact  as  well  as  courage.  He  invited  those 
savage  warriors  to  a  feast.  His  kettle  was  brimming, 
and  as  the  Indians  filled  their  mouths  with  the  savory 
meat,  he  filled  their  ears  with  the  story  of  the  gospel, 
and  gave  them  their  first  view  of  that  eternal  life, 
purchased  by  the  blood  of  Christ. 

The  deer-hunt  became  a  soul-hunt.  The  wild  Si- 
caugu grunted  their  amicable  "Hao"  as  they  left  his 
teepee,  their  mouths  filled  with  venison  and  their  hearts 
planted  with  the  seeds  of  eternal  truth. 

Again  he  went  on  a  deer-hunt,  when  he  crossed  an- 
other trail,  that  of  hunters  from  another  hostile  tribe. 
In  the  camp  he  found  a  sick  child,  the  son  of  Sam- 
uel Heart,  a  Yankton  Sioux.  But  let  Heart  tell  the 
story  himself  in  his  simple  way: 

"I  was  many  days  travel  away  in  the  wilderness. 
My  child  was  very  sick.  I  felt  much  troubled.  A 
man  of  God  came  to  my  tent.  I  remember  all  he  said. 
He  told  me  not  to  be  troubled,  but  to  trust  in  God,  and 


82  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

all  would  be  well.  He  prayed;  he  asked  God  to 
strengthen  the  child  so  I  could  bring  him  home.  God 
heard  him.  My  child  lived  to  get  home.  Once  my 
heart  would  have  been  very  sad,  and  I  would  have 
done  something  very  wicked.  I  look  forward  and 
trust  Jesus." 

This  is  how  Rev.  Artemas  Ehnamane  spent  his  va- 
cations, hunting  for  wild  souls  instead  of  wild  deer. 

He  was  a  scriptural,  personal  and  powerful  preach- 
er. 

Faith  in  a  risen  Saviour,  was  the  keynote  of  his 
ministry.  As  he  said:  "Who  of  all  the  Saviours  of 
the  Indian  people  has  risen  from  the  dead  ?  Not  one." 
"Our  fathers  told  us  many  things  and  gave  us  many 
customs,  but  they  were  not  true."  "I  grew  up  be- 
lieving in  what  my  father  taught  me,  but  when  I  knew 
of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  I  believed  in  Him 
and  put  aside  all  my  ways."  It  was  to  him  in  truth, 
the  coming  out  of  darkness  into  light.  "Sins  are  like 
wolves,"  he  said.  "They  abound  in  the  darkness  and 
destroy  men.  When  we  enter  the  way,  Jesus  watch- 
es over  us.  Be  awake  and  follow  Him.  All 'over  the 
world  men  are  beginning  to  follow  Christ.  The  day 
is  here."  "Repent,  believe,  obey." 

He  loved  to  sing : 

"Saved,  by  grace,  alone; 
That  is  all  my  plea; 
Jesus  died  for  all  mankind; 
Jesus  died  for  me." 


SOWING  ANO  REAPING.  83 

The  twenty  grand-children  of  the  old  Sioux — all  of 
school  age — are  diligently  prosecuting  their  studies  in 
order  to  be  prepared  to  meet  the  changed  conditions 
which  civilization  has  made  possible  for  the  Indians. 
One  of  his  grand-sons  is  a  physician  now,  in  a  fair 
practice  among  his  own  people. 

This  man  President  Lincoln  wisely  pardoned,  know- 
ing full  well  what  a  great  influence  for  good  such  a 
man  could  wield  over  his  turbulent  people.     And  the 
President  was  not  disappointed.     One  of  his  sons  has 
been  a  missionary  among  the  Swift  Bear  tribe  at  the 
Rose  Bud  Agency  for  twenty  years;  another  son  has 
been  a  missionary  at  Standing  Rock,  on  the  Grand 
River,  and  is  now  pastor  of  an  Indian  congregation  on 
Basile  Creek,  Nebraska,  and  is  also  an  important  lead- 
er of  his  tribe.     The  Rev.  Francis  Frazier,  one  of  his 
sons,  was  installed  September  10,  1902,  as  his  father's 
successor  in  the  pastorate  of  Pilgrim  church  at  Santee. 
His  married  daughter  is  also  very  earnest  in  the 
•  woman's  work  in  the  church.     Seventy-seven  years  of 
age  at  his  death,  Rev.  Artemas  Ehnamane  had  filled 
to  overflowing  with  good  deeds  to  offset  the  first  half, 
when  he  fought  against  the     encroachments     of     the 
whites  and  the  advance  of  civilization  with  as  much 
zeal  as  later  he  evinced  in  his  religious  and  beneficent 
life.     Abraham  Lincoln  pardoned  Ehnamane  and  the 
old  warrior  never  forgot  it.     But  it  was  another  pard- 
on he  prized  more  highly  than  that.     It  was  this  pard- 
on he  preached  and  died  believing. 


VI 

TWO  FAMOUS  MISSIONS. 

Lake  Harriet  and  Prairieville 

In  the  spring  of  1835,  the  Rev.  Jedediah  Dwight 
Stevens,  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  arrived  at  Fort 
Snelling  under  the  auspices  of  the  American  Board  of 
Missions.  He  established  a  station  on  the  northwest- 
ern shore  of  Lake  Harriet.  It  was  a  most  beautiful 
spot,  west  of  the  Indian  village,  presided  over  by  that 
friendly  and  influencial  chieftain  Cloudman  or  Man- 
of-the-sky.  He  erected  two  buildings — the  mission- 
home,  first  residence  for  white  settlers,  and  the  school 
house — the  first  building  erected  exclusively  for  school 
purposes  within  the  present  boundaries  of  the  State 
of  Minnesota. 

Within  a  few  rods  of  the  Pavilion,  where  on  the 
Sabbath,  multitudes  gather  for  recreation,  and  dese- 
cration of  God's  holy  day,  is  the  site,  where,  in  1835, 
the  first  systematic  effort  was  made  to  educate  and 
Christianize  Dakota  Indians.  It  is  near  the  present 
junction  of  Forty-second  Street,  and  Queen  Avenue. 
(Linden  Hills). 

In  July,  Mr.  Stevens,  and  his  interesting  family, 
took  possession  of  the  mission  house.  With  the  co-op- 
eration of  the  Pond  brothers,  this  mission  was  prose- 
cuted with  a  fair  measure  of  success  till  the  removal  of 
the  Indians  farther  west,  in  1839,  when  it  was  aband- 
oned, and  the  connection  of  Mr.  Stevens  with  the  work 
of  the  Dakota  mission  ceased. 

Here  on  the  evening  of  November  22,  1838,  a  ro- 


SONVIXG  AXD  REAPING.  85 

mantle  \veddinp-  was  solemnized  bv  Rev.  T.  D.  Stevens. 

^_>  «•  •/ 

The  groom  was  Samuel  Pond  of  the  Dakota  mission. 
The  groomsman  was  Henry  H.  Sibley,  destined  in  af- 
ter years  to  be  Minnesota's  first  delegate  to  Congress, 
her  first  state  executive,  and  in  the  trying  times  of  '62,. 
the  victorious  General  Sibley.  The  bride  was  Mis* 
Cordelia  Eggleston ;  the  bridesmaid,  Miss  Cornelia  Ste- 
vens; both  amiable,  lovely  and  remarkably  handsome. 

It  was  a  brilliant,  starry  evening,  one  of  Minnesota's 
brightest  and  most  invigorating.  The  sleighing  was 
line,  and  among  the  guests,  were  many  officers,  from. 
Fort  Snelling,  with  their  wives.  Dr.  Emerson  and 
wife,  the  owners  of  Dred  Scott,  the  subject  of  Judge 
Taney's  infamous  decision,  were  present.  The  doctor 
was,  then,  post-surgeon  at  the  fort,  and  the  slave  Dred, 
was  his  body-servant.  The  tall  bridegroom  and 
groomsman,  in  the  vigor  and  strength  of  their  young 
manhood ;  the  bride  and  bridesmaid,  just  emerging 
from  girlhood,  with  all  their  dazzling  beauty,  the  offi- 
cers in  the  brilliant  uniforms,  and  their  wives,  in  their 
gay  attire,  must  have  formed  an  attractive  picture  in 
the  long  ago.  After  the  wedding  festivities,  the 
guests  from  the  fort  were  imprisoned  at  the  mission 
for  the  night,  by  a  blizzard,  which  swept  over  the  icy 
face  of  Lake  Harriet. 

In  the.  previous  November,  at  Lac-qui-Parle,  the 
younger  brother  was  united  in  marriage  to  Miss  Sarah 
Poage,  by  the  Rev.  Stephen  R.  Riggs.  It  was  a. 
unique  gathering.  The  guests  were  all  the  dark- 
faced  dwellers  of  the  Indian  village,  making  a  novel 
of  whites,  half-breeds  and  savage  Indians. 


£6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Many  of  the  latter  were  poor,  maimed,  halt  and  blind, 
who  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  feast  of  potatoes,  turnips, 
and  bacon  so  generously  provided  by  the  happy  bride- 
groom. 

PRAIR1EVILLE. 

In  1846,  Shakpe  or  Little  Six,  extended  an  urgent 
invitation  to  Samuel  Pond  to  establish  a  mission  at 
Tintonwan — "the  village  on  the  prairies" — for  the 
benefit  of  his  people.  He  was  chief  of  one  of  the 
most  turbulent  bands  of  Indians  in  the  valley  of  the 
Minnesota.  He  was  a  man  of  marked  ability  and  one 
of  the  ablest  and  most  effective  orators  in  the  whole 
Dakota  nation.  Yet  withal,  Shakpe  was  a  petty  thief, 
had  a  "forked  tongue,"  a  violent  temper,  was  excit- 
able, and  vindictive  in  his  revenge.  These  character- 
istics led  him  to  the  scaffold.  He  was  hanged  at  Fort 
Snelling,  in  1863  for  participation  in  the  bloody  mass- 
acre of  '62.  He  and  his  followers  were  so  noted  for 
their  deception  and  treachery,  that  Mr.  Pond  doubted 
their  sincerity  and  the  wisdom  of  accepting  their  in- 
vitation. But  after  weeks  of  prayeful  deliberation,  he 
accepted  and  began  preparations  for  a  permanent  es- 
tablishment at  that  point.  He  erected  a  commodious 
and  substantial  residence  into  which  he  removed,  with 
his  household,  in  November  1847. 

This  station,  which  Mr.  Pond  called  Prairieville, 
was  fourteen  miles  southeast  of  Oak  Grove  mission,  on 
the  present  site  of  Shakopee.  The  mission  home  was 
pleasantly  located  on  gently  rising  ground,  half  a  mile 
south  of  the  Minnesota  River.  It  was  surrounded  by 
the  teepees  of  six  hundred  noisy  savages.  Here,  for 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  87 

several  years  they  toiled  unceasingly  for  the  welfare 
of  the  wild  men,  by  whom  they  were  surrounded. 

In  1851,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pond  were  compelled,  by 
her  rapidly  failing  health,  to  spend  a  year  in  the  east. 
She  never  returned.  She  died  February  6,  1852,  at 
Washington,  Connecticut.  Thus  after  fourteen  years 
of  arduous  missionary  toil,  Cordelia  Eggleston  Pond, 
the  beautiful  bride  of  the  Lake  Harriet  mission  house, 
was  called  from  service  to  reward  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-six. 

Mr.  Pond  returned  to  Prairieville  and  toiled  on  for 
the  Indians  until  their  removal  by  the  government,  in 
1853.  He  himself,  remained  and  continued  his  labors 
for  the  benefit  of  the  white  community  of  Shakopee, 
which  had  grown  up  around  him.  In  i8|3,  a  white 
Presbyterian,  church  was  organized  and,  in  1856,  a 
comfortable  church  edifice  was  erected,  wholly  at  the 
expense  of  the  pastor  and  his  people.  The  congrega- 
tion still  exists  and  the  mission  house  still  stands  as 
monuments  of  the  wisdom,  faith  and  fortitude  of  the 
heroic  builder.  After  thirteen  years  of  faithful  serv- 
ice, he  laid  the  heavy  burdens  down  for  younger  hands, 
but  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  longer  he  remained  in 
his.  old  home. 

During  these  last  years,  his  chief  delight  was  in  his 

books,  which  lost  none  of  their  power  to  interest  him 

in  advancing  age :  epecially  was  this  true  of  the  Book 

of  books.     He  was  never  idle.    The  active  energy, 

which  distinguished  his  youth,  no  less  marked  his  ad- 


88  SOWING  AND  REAPING. 

vcincing  years.  His  mind  was  as  clear,  his  judgment  as 
sound,  and  his  mental  vision  as  keen  at  eighty-three, 
as  they  were  at  thirty-three.  His  was  a  long  and  hap- 
py old  age.  He  lingered  in  the  house  his  own  hands 
had  builded,  content  to  go  or  stay,  till  he  was  trans- 
ferred, December  twelfth,  1891,  to  the  house  not  made 
with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 


vn 

THE  PRINCE  OF  INDIAN  PREACHERS. 

Without  disparagement  to  any  of  his  brethren  in  the 
ministry,  this  title  can  be  properly  applied  to  the  Rev. 
John  Baptiste  Renville,  of  lyakaptapte,  (Ascension) 
South  Dakota,  who  recently  passed  on  to  join  the  shin- 
ing ranks  of  the  saved  Sioux  in  glory. 

Timid  as  a  little  child,  yet  bold  as  a  lion,  when 
aroused;  shy  of  conversation  in  private,  yet  eloquent 
in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  council-chamber;  yielding  yet 
firm  as  a  rock,  when  duty  demanded  it ;  a  loving  hus- 
band, a  kind  father,  a  loyal  citizen,  a  faithful  presby- 
ter— a  pungent  preacher  of  the  gospel,  a  soul-winner — 
a  courteous,  cultured  Christian  gentleman ;  such  a  man 
was  this  Indian  son  of  a  Sioux  mother,  herself  the  first 
f  ullblood  Sioux  convert  to  the  Christian  faith. 

He  was  the  youngest  son  of  Joseph  Renville,  a  mix- 
ed blood  Sioux  and  French,  who  was  a.  captain  in  the 
British  army  in  the  War  of  1812  and  the  most  famous 
Sioux  Indian  in  his  day.  After  the  war,  he  became  a 
trader  and  established  his  headquarters  at  Lac-qui- 
Parle,  where  he  induced  Dr.  Thomas  S.  Williamson  to 
locate  his  first  mission  station  in  1835. 

John  Baptiste  was  one  of  the  first  Indian  children 
baptized  by  Dr.  Williamson  and  he  enjoyed  the  bene- 
fits of  the  first  school  among  the  Sioux.  He  was  rath- 
er delicate,  which  hindered  his  being  sent  east  to  school 
as  much  as  he  otherwise  would  have  been.  However, 
he  spent  several  years  in  excellent  white  schools,  and 


c 

<  ^ 

en   T3 

<     C 


The  Rev.  Thomas  S.  Williamson,   M.  D.. 
Forty-five  years  a  Missionary  to  the  Sioux. 


90  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

he  acquired  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  elementary 
hranches  of  the  English  language.  The  last  year  he 
spent  at  Knox  College,  Galesburgh,  Illinois,  where  he 
wooed  and  won  Miss  Mary  Butler,  an  educated  Christ- 
ian white  woman,  whom  he  married  and  who  became 
his  great  helper  in  his  educational  and  evangelistic 
work. 

He  was  the  first  Sioux  Indian  to  enter  the  ministry. 
In  the  spring  of  1865,  he  was  licensed  to  preach,  by 
the  presbytery  of  Dakota,  at  Mankato,  Minnesota,  and 
ordained  in  the  following  autumn.  When  he  entered 
the  ministry,  the  Sioux  Indians  were  in  a  very  unset- 
tled state,  and  his  labors  were  very  much  scattered ; 
now  with  the  Indian  scouts  on  some  campaign ;  again 
with  a  few  families  of  Indians  gathered  about  some 
military  post,  and  anon  with  a  little  class  of  Indians, 
who  were  trying  to  settle  down  to  civilized  life. 

In  1870,  he  became  the  pastor  of  Ivakaptapte,  (As- 
cension) a  little  church  in  what  subsequently  became 
the  Sisseton  reservation.  Both  physically  and  in  men- 
tal and  spiritual  qualities,  he  was  best  adapted  to  a  set- 
tled pastorate.  His  quiet  and  unobtrusive  character  re-- 
quired long  intercourse  to  be  appreciated.  However, 
in  the  pulpit,  his  earnestness  and  apt  presentation  of 
the  truth  ever  commanded  the  attention  even  of 
strangers.  Under  his  ministry,  the  church  increased 
to  one  hundred  and  forty  members.  More  than  half 
a  dozen  of  them  became  ministers  and  Ascension  was 
generally  the  leading  church  in  every  good  work 
among  the  Dakota  Indians.  No  one  among  the  Chris- 
tian Sioux  was  more  wiclclv  known  and  loved  than  Mr. 


AMONG  THE  SIOUX.  91 

Renville.  In  the  councils  of  the  church,  though  there 
were  seventeen  other  ministers  in  the  presbytery  before 
his  death,  he  was  ever  given  the  first  place  both  for 
counsel  and  honor.  He  twice  represented  his  presby- 
tery in  the  general  Assembly,  and  he  was  ever  faith- 
ful in  his  attendance  at  Synod  and  Presbytery  and  act- 
ive in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  devolving  upon  him. 
Mary  Butler,  the  white  wife  of  his  youth,  died  sev- 
eral years  ago.  Their  daughter  Ella,  a  fine  Christian 
young  lady  passed  away  at  twenty  years  of  age.  She 
was  active  in  organizing  Bands  of  Hcpc  among  the 
children  of  the  tribe.  She  sleeps,  with  her  parents  on 
the  brow  of  lyakaptapte  overlooking  the  chruch  tc 
which  all  their  lives  were  devoted.  Josephine,  the 
Indian  wife  of  his  old  age,  survives  him  and  remains 
in  the  white  farm  house  on  the  prairie  in  which  John 
Baptiste  Renville  spent  so  many  years  of  his  long,  hap- 
py useful  life.  He  died  December  19,  19x54,  in  the 
seventy-third  year  of  his  age. 


•  VIII 

AN  INDIAN  PATRIARCH. 

Chief  Cloudman  or  Man-of-the-sky,  was  one  of  the 
strongest  characters  among  the  natives  on  -the  head- 
waters of  the  Mississippi  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  He  was  one  of  the  leading  chiefs  of 
file  Santee  band  of  Sioux  Indians.  He  was  born  about 
1780.  He  was  brave  in  battle,  wise  in  council,  and 
possessed  many  other  noble  qualities,  which  caused 
him  to  rise  far  above  his  fellow  chieftains.  He  pos- 
sessed a  large  fund  of  common  sense.  Years  prior  to 
ihe  advent  of  the  white  man  in  this  region,  he  regarded 
hunting  and  fishing  as  a  too  precarious  means  to  a  live- 
lihood, and  attempted  to  teach  his  people  agriculture 
and  succeeded  to  a  limited  extent. 

It  was  a  strange  circumstance  that  prompted  the 
chief  to  this  wise  action.  On  a  hunting  tour  in  the 
Red  River  country,  with  a  part  of  his  band,  they  were 
overtaken  by  a  drifting  storm  and  remained,  for  sev- 
eral days,  under  the  snow,  without  any  food  whatso- 
ever. While  buried  in  those  drifts,  he  resolved  to  rely, 
in  part,  upon  agriculture,  for  subsistence,  if  he  escaped 
alive,  and  he  carried  out  his  resolution,  after  the  im- 
mediate peril  was  passed.  His  band  cultivated  smal! 
fields  of  quickly  maturing  corn,  which  had  been  intro- 
duced by  their  chief  in  the  early  30*5.  He  was  respect- 
ed and  loved  by  his  people  and  quite  well  obeyed. 

Before  the  coming  of  the  missionaries  he  taught  and 
enforced,  by  his  example,  this  principle,  namely,  that 


REV.  JOHN   EASTMAN. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  93 

it  as  wrong  to  kill  non-combatants,  or  to  kill  under  any 
circumstances  in  time  of  peace.  He  favored  peace 
rather  than  war.  He  was  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
cind  had  six  notches  on  the  handle  of  his  tomahawk,  in- 
dicating t'hat  he  had  slain  half  a  dozen  of  his  Ojibway 
foes  before  he  adopted  this  human  policy. 

His  own  band  lived  on  the  shores  of  Lakes  Calhoun 
and  Harriet,  within  the  present  limits  of  Minneapo- 
On  the  present  site  of  lovely  Lakewood — Minneapo- 
lis' most  fashionable  cemetery — was.  his  village  of  sev- 
eral hundred  savages,  and  also  an  Indian  burial  place. 
This  village  was  the  front  guard  against  the  war  part- 
ies of  the  O  jib  ways — feudal  enemies  of  the  Sioux — but 
finally  as  their  young  men  were  killed  off  in  battle, 
they  were  compelled  to  remove  and  join  their  people 
on  the  banks  of  the  Minnesota  and  farther  West.  He 
located  his  greatly  reduced  band  at  Bloomington,  di- 
rectly west  of  his  original  village.  This  removal  oc- 
curred prior  to  1838. 

He  was  never  hostile  to  the  approach  of  civilization, 
or  blind  to  the  blessings  it  might  confer  on  his  people. 

He  was  one  of  the  first  of  his  tribe  to  accept  the 
white  man's  ways  and  to  urge  his  band  to  follow  his 
example.  This  fact  is  confirmed  by  the  great  progress 
his  descendants  have  made. 

He  was  the  first  Sioux  Indian  of  any  note  to  welcome 
those  first  pioneer  missionaries,  the  Pond  brothers.  As 
early  as  1834  he  encouraged  them  to  erect  their  home 
and  inaugurate  their  work  in  his  village.  In  all  the 
treaties  formed  between  the  government  and  the  Sioux, 
he  was  ever  the  ready  and  able  advocate  of  the  white 


94  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

man's  cause.  He  threw  all  the  weight  of  his  power- 
ful influence  in  favor  of  cession  to  the  United  States 
government  of  the  military  reservation  on  which  Fort 
Snelling  now  stands.  He  died  at  Fort  Snelling  in 
1863,  and  was  buried  on  the  banks  of  the  Minnesota  in 
view  of  the  fort. 

He  was  the  father  of  seven  children,  all  of  whom  are 
dead,  except  his  son  David  Weston,  his  successor  in 
the  chieftainship,  who  still  lives  at  Flandreau,  South 
Dakota,  at  the  age  of  seventy-eight  years.  He  was  for 
many  years  a  catechist  of  the  Episcopal  Church.  His 
two  daughters  were  called  Hushes-the-Night  and 
Stands-like-a-Spirit.  They  were  once  the  belles  of 
Lake  Harriet,  to  whom  the  officers  and  fur  traders 
paid  homage.  Hushes-the-Night  married  a  white  man 
named  Lamont  and  became  the  mother  of  a  child  call- 
ed Jane.  She  had  one  sister,  who  died  childless,  in 
St.  Paul,  in  1901.  Jane  Lamont  married  Star  Titus, 
a  nephew  of  the  Pond  brothers.  They  became  the  par- 
ents of  three  sons  and  two  daughters.  Two  of  these 
sons  are  bankers  and  rank  among  the  best  business 
men  of  North  Dakota.  They  are  recognized  as  lead- 
ers among  the  whites.  The  other  son  is  a  farmer  near 
Tracy,  Minnesota.  Stands-Like-a-Spirit  was  the  moth- 
er of  one  daughter,  Mary  Nancy  Eastman,  whose  fath- 
er, Captain  Seth  Eastman,  was  stationed  at  Fort  Snell- 
ing— 1830-36.  Mary  Nancy  married  Many  Light- 
nings, a  fullblood,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Wahpe- 
ton-Sioux.  They  became  the  parents  of  four  sons  and 
one  daughter.  After  Many  Lightnings  became  a 
Christian,  he  took  his  wife's  name,  Eastman,  instead  of 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  95 

his  own,  and  gave  all  his  children  English  names. 
John,  the  eldest,  and  Charles  Alexander,  the  youngest 
son,  have  made  this  branch  of  the  Cloudman  family 
widely  and  favorably  known. 

John  Eastman,  at  twenty-six  years  of  age,  became  a 
Presbyterian  minister,  and  for  more.than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  has  been  the  successful  pastor  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  church  of  Flandreau,  South  Dakota.  He 
was  for  many  years  a  trusty  Indian  agent  at  that  place. 
He  is  a  strong  factor  in  Indian  policy  and  politics. 
He  has  had  a  scanty  English  education  in  books,  but 
he  has  secured  an  excellent  training,  chiefly  by  ming- 
ling with  cultured  white  people. 

His  proud  statement  once  was;  "every  adult  mem- 
ber of  the  Flandreau  band  is  a  professing  Christian, 
and  every  child  of  school  age  is  in  school."  During 
the  "Ghost  Dance  War,"  in  1890,  his  band  remained 
quietly  at  home,  busy  about  their  affairs.  In  the 
spring  of  1891,  they  divided  $40,000  among  them- 
selves. 

Charles  Alexander  Eastman  was  born  in  1858,  in 
Minnesota,  the  ancestral  home  of  the  Sioux,  and  pass- 
ed the  first  fifteen  years  of  his  life  in  the  heart  of  the 
wilds  of  British  America,  enjoying  to  the  full,  the  free, 
nomadic  existence  of  his  race.  During  all  this  time, 
he  lived  in  a  teepee  of  buffalo  skins,  subsisted  upon 
wild  rice  and  the  fruits  of  the  chase,  never  entered  a 
house  nor  heard  the  English  language  spoken,  and 
v/as  taught  to  distrust  and  hate  the  white  man. 

The  second  period  (third)  of  his  life  was  spent  in 
school  and  college,  where  after  a  short  apprenticeship 


t>6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

in  a  mission  school,  he  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
with  our  own  youth,  at  Beloit,  Knox,  Dartmouth  and 
the  Boston  university.  He  is  an  alumnus  of  Dartmouth 
of  '87  and  of  Boston  University,  department  of  medi- 
cine, of  '90. 

During  the  last  fifteen  years,  he  has  been  a  man  of 
varied  interests  and  occupations,  a  physician,  mission- 
ary, writer  and  speaker  of  wide  experience  and,  for 
the  greater  part  of  the  time,  has  held  an  appointment 
under  the  government. 

At  his  birth  he  was  called  "Hakadah"  or  "The  Piti- 
ful Last,"  as  his  mother  died  shortly  after  his  birth. 
He  bore  this  sad  name  till  years  afterwards  he  was 
called  Ohiyesa,  "The  Winner/'  to  commemorate  a 
great  victory  of  La  Crosse,  the  Indian's  favorite  game, 
won  by  his  band,  "The  Leaf  Dwellers,"  over  their 
foes,  the  Ojibways.  When  he  received  this  new  name, 
the  leading  medicine  man  thus  exhorted  him :  "Be 
brave,  be  patient  and  thou  shalt  always  win.  Thy 
name  is  "Ohiyesa  the  Winner."  The  spirit  of  his  ben- 
ediction seems  to  follow  and  rest  upon  him  in  his  life- 
service. 

His  grandmother  was  "Stands-Like-a- Spirit,"  the 
second  daughter  of  the  old  chief  Cloudman.  His  full- 
blooded  Sioux  father  was  a  remarkable  man  in  many 
ways  and  his  mother,  a  half-blood  woman,  w7as  the 
daughter  of  a  well-known  army  officer.  She  was  the 
most  beautiful  woman  of  the  "Leaf  Dwellers"  band. 
By  reason  of  her  great  beauty,  she  was  called  the 
"Demi-Goddess  of  the  Sioux."  Save  for  her  luxuri- 
ant, black  hair,  and  her  deep  black  eyes,  she  had  every 


DR.  CHARLES  A.  EASTMAN, 
Famous  Sioux  Author,  Orator  and  Physician. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  97 

characteristic  of  Caucasian  descent.  The  motherless 
lad  was  reared  by  his  grandmother  and  an  uncle  in 
the  wilds  of  Manitoba,  where  he  learned  thoroughly, 
the  best  of  the  ancient  folk  lore,  religion  and  wood- 
craft of  his  people.  Thirty  years  of  civilization  have 
not  dimmed  his  joy  in  the  life  of  the  wilderness  nor 
caused  him  to  forget  his  love  and  sympathy  for  the 
primitive  people  and  the  animal  friends,  who  were  the 
intimates  of  his  boyhood. 

He  is  very  popular  as  a  writer  for  the  leading  mag- 
azines. "His  Recollections  of  Wild  Life"  in  St.  Nich- 
olas, and  his  stories  of  "Wild  Animals"  in  Harper, 
have  entertained  thousands  of  juvenile  as  well  as  adult 
readers.  His  first  book,  "Indian  boyhood,"  which  ap- 
peared in  1902,  has  passed  through  several  editions, 
and  met  with  hearty  appreciation.  "Red  Hunters  and 
the  Animal  People,"  published  in  1904,  bids  fair  to  be, 
at  least,  equally  popular. 

During  the  last  two  years,  he  has  lectured  in  many 
towns  from  Maine  to  California  and  he  is  welcomed 
everywhere.  His  specialty  is  the  customs,  laws,  re- 
ligion, etc.,  of  the  Sioux.  Writty,  fluent,  intellectual, 
trained  in  both  methods  of  education,  he  is  eminenly 
fitted  to  explain,  in. an  inimitable  and  attractive  man- 
ner, the  customs,  beliefs  and  superstitions  of  the  In- 
dian. He  describes  not  only  the  life  and  training  of 
the  boy,  but  the  real  Indian  as  no  white  man  could 
possibly  do.  He  brings  out  strongly  the  red  man's 
wit,  music,  poetry  and  eloquence.  He  also  explains 
graphically  from  facts  gained  from  his  own  people,  the 
great  mystery  of  the  battle  of  the  Little  Big  Horn  in 


98  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

which  the  gallant  Custer  and  brave  men  went  to  their 
bloody  death. 

He  was  married  in  1891  at  New  York  City,  to  Miss 
Elaine  Goodale,  a  finely  cultured  young  lady  from 
Massachusetts,  herself  a  poetess  and  prose  writer  of 
more  than  ordinary  ability. 

They  have  lived  very  happily  together  ever  since  and 
are  the  parents  of  five  lovely  children.  They  have 
lived  in  Washington  and  St.  Paul  and  are  now  resi- 
dents of  Amherst,  Massachusetts.  Whether  in  his 
physician's  office,  in  his  study,  on  the  lecture  platform, 
in  the  press  or  in  his  own  home,  Dr.  Charles  Alexander 
Eastman  is  a  most  attractive  personality. 


DC 

JOHN 

The  Beloved  of  the  Sioux  Nation 

Rev.  John  P.  Williamson,  D.D.,  of  Greenwood, 
South  Dakota,  was  born  in  the  month  of  October, 
1835,  in  one  of  Joseph  Renville's  log  cabins, 
with  dirt  roof  and  no  floor;  and  was  the  first  white 
child  born  in  Minnesota,  outside  of  the  soldier's  fami- 
lies at  Fort  Snelling.  His  father,  the  Rev.  Thomas 
S.  Williamson.  M.  D.,  was  the  first  ordained  mission- 
ary appointed  to  labor  among  tfie  Sioux  Indians. 
He  came  out  to  the  new  Northwest  on  an  exploring 
expedition  in  1834,  visiting  the  Indian  camps  at  Wa- 
bawsha,  Red  Wing,  Kaposia,  and  others. 

He  returned  in  the  spring  of  1835,  with  his  family 
and  others  who  were  appointed. 

After  the  arrival  of  this  missionary  party,  Dr.  Will- 
iamson and  his  colleagues,  lived  and  labored  contin- 
uously among  the  Indians  the  remainder  of  their  lives. 
Their  work  for  the  Master  has  not  suffered  any  in- 
terruption, but  is  still  carried  on  successfully  and  vig- 
orously by  their  successors. 

John  P.  Williamson  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  the  In- 
dians. He  mastered  the  Sioux  language  in  early  boy- 
hood. As  a  lad.  he  had  the  present  sites  of  Minne- 
apolis and  St.  Paul  for  his  playgrounds  and  little  In- 
dian lads  for  his  playmates.  Among  these,  was  Lit- 
tle Crow,  who  afterwards  became  infamous  in  his  sav- 
age warfare,  against  the  defenseless  settlers  in  west- 
ern Minnesota,  in  1862. 


loo  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

He  was  early  dedicated  to  the  work  of  the  gospel 
ministry.  In  his  young  manhood  he  was  sent  to  Ohio, 
for  his  education.  In  1857,  he  graduated  at  Marietta 
College,  and  in  1860,  at  Lane  Seminary,  Cincinnatti. 
In  1859  he  was  licensed  by  Dakota  (Indian)  Presby- 
tery, and  ordained,  by  the  same  body,  in  1861.  The 
degree  of  D.  D.  was  conferred  upon  him  by  Yankton, 
(S.  D.)  college  in  1890.  He  recognized  no  call  to 
preach  the  gospel  save  to  the  Sioux  Indians,  and  for 
forty-six  years,  he  has  given  his  whole  life  zealously 
to  this  great  work.  He  has  thrown  his  whole  life  un- 
reservedly into  it.  And  he  has  accomplished  great 
things  for  the  Master  and  the  tribe  to  which  he  has 
ministered. 

In  1860  he  established  a  mission  and  organized  a 
Presbyterian  church  of  twelve  members  at  Red  Wood 
Agency  on  the  Minnesota.  These  were  both  dstroyed, 
in  the  outbreak  two  years  later.  He  spent  the  winter 
of  1862-3,  in  evangelistic  work,  among  the  Sioux,  in 
the  prison-camp  at  Fort  Snelling,  where  1,500  were 
gathered'  under  military  guard.  An  intense  re- 
ligious interest  sprung  up  amongst  them  and  contin- 
ued for  months.  Young  Dr.  Williamson  so  minister- 
ed unto  them,  that  the  whole  camp  was  reached  and 
roused,  and  the  major  part  of  the  adults  were  led  to 
Christ.  'Many,  including  scores  of  the  children  of  the 
believers,  were  baptized.  A  Presbyterian  congregation 
of  more  than  one  hundred  communicants  was  organiz- 
ed. This  church  was  afterwards  united  with  the 
church  of  the  Prison-pen,  at  Crow  Creek,  Nebraska. 


SOWING  AND  REAPING.  101 

In  1883,  he  was  appointed  superintendent  of  Presby- 
terian missions  among  the  Sioux  Indians.  He  has  ev- 
er abounded  in  self-sacrificing  and  successful  labors  a- 
mong  this  tribe.  He  has  organized  Nineteen  (19) 
congregations  and  erected  twenty-three  (23)  church 
edifices.  In  twenty-three  years  he  has  traveled  two 
hundred  thousand  miles  in  the  prosecution  of  these  ar- 
duous labors.  The  number  of  converts  cannot  be  reck- 
oned up. 

In  1866,  he  was  married  to  Miss  Sarah  A.  Vannice. 
To  them  there  have  been  born  four  sons  and  three 
daughters,  who  are  still  living.  In  1869  he  establish- 
ed the  Yankton  mission,  which  has  ever  since  been  a 
great  center,  moral  and  spiritual,  to  a  vast  region.  At 
the  same  time  he  established  his  home  at  Greenwood, 
South  Dakota,  and  from  that,  as  his  mission  head- 
quarters, he  has  gone  to  and  from  in  his  great  mission- 
ary tours  throughout  the  Dakota  land. 

He  has,  also,  abounded  in  literary  labors.  For  six- 
teen years  he  was  the  chief  editor  of  "lapi  Oayi,"  an 
Indian  weekly.  In  1864,  he  published  "Powa  Wow- 
spi,"  an  Indian  Spelling  Book,  and  in  1865,  a  collection 
of  Dakota  Hymns.  His  greatest  literary  work,  how- 
ever, was  an  edition  of  the  "Dakota  Dictionary,"  in 
1871,  and  other  later  editions. 

He  has  won  the  affections  of  the  whole  Sioux  nation. 
They  bow  willingly  to  his  decisions,  and  follow  gladly 
his  counsels.  To  them,  he  is  a  much  greater  man  than 
President  Roosevelt.  While  he  has  passed  the  limit  of 
his  three-score  years  and  ten — forty-six  of  them  in 
frontier  service — his  bow  still  abides  in  strength,  and 


102  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

he  still  abounds  in  manifold  labors.     He  is  still  bring- 
ing forth  rich  fruitage  in  his  old  age. 

Every  white  dweller  among  the  Indians  is  known  by 
some  special  cognomen.  His  is  simply  "John."  And 
when  it  is  pronounced,  by  a  Sioux  Indian  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  tribe  always  does  it  so  lovingly,  all  who  hear 
it  know  he  refers  to  "John,  the  Beloved  of  the  Sioux 
Nation." 


THE  MARTYRS  OF  OLD  ST.  JOE. 

One  of  the  most  touching  tragedies  recorded  in  th? 
annals  of  the  new  Northwest,  was  enacted  in  the  sixth 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  on  the  borders  of 
Prince  Rupert's  Land  and  the  Louisiana  purchase 
(now  Manitoba  and  North  Dakota).  It  is  a  pictur- 
esque spot,  where  the  Pembina  river  cuts  the  inter- 
national boundary  line  in  its  course  to  the  southeast 
to  join  the  Red  River  of  the  North  in  its  course  to 
Hudson's  bay. 

Sixty  years  ago,  in  this  place,  encircled  by  the 
wood-crowned  mountain  and  the  forest-lined  river 
and  prairies,  rich  as  the  gardens  of  the  gods,  there 
stood  a  village  and  trading  post  of  considerable  im- 
portance, named  after  the  patron  saint  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  church,  in  its  midst — St.  Joseph — commonly 
called  St.  Joe.  It  was  a  busy,  bustling  town,  with  a 
mixed  population  of  1,500.  Most  of  these  dwelt  in 
tents  of  skin.  There  were,  also,  two  or  three  large 
trading  posts  and  thirty  houses,  built  of  large,  hewn 
timbers  mudded  smoothly  within  and  without  and 
roofed  with  shingles.  Some  of  these  were  neat  and 
pretty ;  one  had  window-shutters.  It  was  the  cen- 
ter of  an  extensive  fur  trade  with  the  Indian  tribes  of 
the  Missouri  river.  Many  thousands  of  buffalo  and 
other  skins  were  shipped  annually  to  St.  Paul  in  carts. 
Sometimes  a  train  of  'four  hundred  of  these  wooden 
carts  started  together  for  St.  Paul,  a  distance  of  four 
hundred  miles. 


104  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

But  old  things  have  passed  away.  The  village  ot 
old  St.  Joe  is  now  marked  only  by  some  cellar  exca- 
vations. It  possesses,  however,  a  sad  interest  as  the 
scene  of  the  martyrdom  of  Protestant  missionaries  on 
this  once  wild  frontier,  then  so  far  removed  from  the 
abodes  of  civilization. 

James  Tanner  was  a  converted  half-breed,  who  with 
his  wife  labored,  in  1849,  as  a  missionary  at  Lake  Win- 
nibogosh,  Minnesota.  His  father  had  been  stolen, 
when  a  lad,  from  his  Kentucky  home,  by  the  Indians. 
Near  the  close  of  1849  he  visited  a  brother  in  the  Pem- 
bina  region.  He  became  so  deeply  interested  in  the  ig- 
norant condition  of  the  people  there,  that  he  made  a 
tour  of  the  East  in  their  behalf.  He  visited  New  York, 
Washington  and  other  cities,  and  awakened  consider- 
able interest  in  behalf  of  the  natives  of  this  region. 
While  east  he  became  a  member  of  the  Baptist  Church. 
He  returned  to  St.  Joe,  in  1852,  accompanied  by  a 
young1  man  named  Benjamin  Terry,  of  St.  Paul,  to  op- 
en a  mission  among  the  Pembina  Chippewas  and  half 
breeds  under  the  auspices  of  the  Baptist  Missionary 
Society.  Terry  was  very  slight  and  youthful  in  ap- 
pearance, quiet  and  retiring  in  disposition  and  was 
long  spoken  of,  by  the  half-breeds,  as  "Tanner's  Boy." 
They  visited  the  Red  River  (Selkirk)  settlement  (now 
Winnipeg).  While  there,  Terry  wooed  and  won  one  of 
the  daughters  of  the  Selkirk  settlers,  a  dark-eyed,  hand- 
some Scotch  lass,  to  whom  he  expected  to  be  married 
in  a  few  months.  But,  alas,  ere  the  close  of  summer, 
he  was  waylaid,  by  a  savage  Sioux,  shot  full  of  arrows, 
his  arm  broken  and  his  entire  scalp  carried  away.  _Mr. 
Tanner  secured  permission  to  bury  him  in  the  Roman 


AMONG  THE   SIOUX  105 

Catholic  Cemetery  in  the  corner  reserved  for  suicides, 
heretics  and  unbaptized  infants.  Thus  ended  in  blood, 
the  first  effort  to  establish  a  Protestant  mission  in  the 
Pembina -country. 

June  i,  1853,  a  band  of  Presbyterian  missionaries 
arrived  at  St.  Joe.  It  was  composed  of  the  Reverends 
Vlonzo  Barnard  and  David  Brainafd  Spencer,  their 
wives  and  children.  They  came  in  canoes  and  in  carts 
from  Red  and  Cass  lakes,  Minnesota,  where  for  ten 
years,  they  had  labored  as  missionaries  among  the 
Chippewas.  They  removed  to  St.  Joe,  at  the  earnest 
request  of  Governor  Alexander  Ramsey,  of  Minnesota, 
and  others  familiar  with  their  labors  and  the  needs  of 
the  Pembina '  natives.  Mrs.  Barnard's  health  soon 
gave  way.  Her  husband  removed  her  to  the  Selkirk 
settlement,  one  hundred  miles  to  the  north,  for  medical 
aid.  Her  health  continued  to  fail  so  rapidly  that  by 
her  strong  desire  they  attempted  to  return  to  St.  Joe. 
The  first  night  they  encamped  in  a  little  tent  on  the 
bteak :  northern  plain  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce  wind- 
storm. The  chilling  winds  penetrated  the  folds  of  the 
tent.  AH  night  long  the  poor  sufferer  lay  in  her  hus- 
band's arms,  moaning  constantly :  "Hold  me  close ;  oh, 
hold  me  clost.'x  They  were  compelled  to  return  to  the 
settlement;  where  after  a  few  days  more  of  intense 
suffering,  she  died,  Oct.  22,  1853,  of  quick  consump- 
tion, caused 'by  ten  years  exposure  and  suffering  for 
the  welfare  of  the  Indians. 

Mrs.  Barnard  was  first  interred  at  the  Selkirk  set- 
tlement, in  Prince  Rupert's  Land  (now  Manitoba). 
In  the  absense  of  other  clergymen,  Mr.  Barnard  was 


io6  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

compelled  to  officiate  at  his  wife's  funeral  himself.  In 
obedience  to  her  dying-  request,  Mrs.  Barnard's  re- 
mains were  removed  to  St.  Joe  and  re-interred  in  the 
yard  of  the  humble  mission  cabin,  Dec.  3,  1853. 

In  1854,  Mr.  Barnard  visited  Ohio  to  provide  a 
home  for  his  children.  On  his  return,  at  Belle  Prair- 
ie, Minnesota,  midway  between  St.  Paul  and  St.  Joe, 
he  met  Mr.  Spencer  and  his  three  motherless  children, 
journeying  four  hundred  miles  by  ox-cart  to  St.  Paul. 
There  in  the  rude  hovel  in  which  they  spent  the  night. 
Mr.  Barnard  baptized  Mr.  Spencer's  infant  son,  now 
an  honored  minister  of  the  Congregational  church  in 
Wisconsin.  On  his  arrival  at  St.  Joe  Mr.  Barnard  found 
another  mound  close  by  the  grave  of  his  beloved  wife. 

The  story  of  this  third  grave  is,  also,  written  in 
blood.  It  was  Aug.  30,  1854.  The  hostile  Sioux 
were  infesting  the  Pembina  region.  Only  the  pre- 
vious month,  had  Mrs.  Spencer  written  to  a  far  distant 
friend  in  India:  "Last  December  the  Lord  gave  us  a 
little  son,  whose  smiling-  face  cheers  many  a  lonely 
hour."  On  this  fatal  night,  she  arose  to  care  for  this 
darling  boy.  A  noise  at  the  window  attracted  her  at- 
tention. She  withdrew  the  curtain  to  ascertain  the 
cause.  Three  Indians  stood  there  with  loaded  rifles 
and  fired.  Three  bullets  struck  her,  two  in  her  throat 
and  one  in  her  breast.  She  neither  cried  out  nor 
spoke,  but  reeling  to  her  bed,  with  her  babe  in  her 
arms,  knelt  down,  where  she  was  soon  discovered  by 
her  husband,  when  he  returned  from  barricading  the 
door.  She  suffered  intensely  for  several  hours  and 
then  died.  And  till  daybreak  Mr.  Spencer  sat  in  a 


AMONG  THE  SIOUX  107 

horrid  dream,  holding  his  dead  wife  in  his  arms.  The 
baby  lay  in  the  rude  cradle  near  by,  bathed  in  his  moth- 
er's blood.  The  two  elder  children  stood  by  terrified 
and  weeping.  Such  was  the  distressing  scene  which 
the  neighbors  beheld  in  the  morning,  when  they  came 
with  their  proffers  of  sympathy  and  help.  The  friend- 
ly half-breeds  came  in,  cared  for  the  poor  children  and 
prepared  the  dead  mother  for  burial.  A  half-breed 
dug  the  grave  and  nailed  a  rude  box  together  for  a  cof- 
fin. Then  with  a  bleeding  heart,  the  sore  bereaved 
man  consigned  to  the  bosom  of  the  friendly  earth  the 
remains  of  his  murdered  wife. 

Within  the  past  thirty  years  civilization  has  rapidly 
taken  possession  of  this  lovely  region.  Christian  homes 
and  Christian  churches  cover  these  rich  prairies.  The 
prosperous  and  rapidly  growing  village  of  Walhalla 
(Paradise)  nestles  in  the  bosom  of  this  lovely  vale 
and  occupies  contentedly  the  former  site  of  Old  St.  Joe. 

June  21,  1888,  one  of  the  most  interesting  events 
in  the  history  of  North  Dakota  occurred  at  the  Presby- 
terian cemetery,  which  crowns  the  brow  of  the  mount- 
ain, overlooking  Walhalla.  It  was  the  unveiling  of 
the  monument  erected  by  tTie  Woman's  Synodical  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  North  Dakota,  which  they  had  pre- 
viously erected  to  the  memory  of  Sarah  Philena  Bar- 
nard and  Cornelia  Spencer,  two  of  the  three  "Martyrs 
of  St.  Joe."  The  monument  is  a  beautiful  and  appro- 
priate one  of  white  marble.  The  broken  pieces  of  old 
stone  formerly  placed  on  Mrs.  Barnard's  grave,  long- 
scattered  and  lost,  were  discovered,  cemented  together 
and  placed  upon  her  new  grave.  The  Rev.  Alonzo 


io8  AMONG  THE  SIOUX. 

Barnard,  seventy-one  years  of  age,  accompanied  by  his 
daughter,  was  present.  Standing  upon  the  graves  of 
the  martyrs,  with  tremulous  voice  and  moistened  eyes, 
he  gave  to  the  assembled  multitude  a  history  of  their 
early  missionary  toil  in  the  abodes  of  savagery.  It 
was  a  thrilling  story,  the  interest  intensified  by  the  sur- 
roundings. The  half-breed  women  who  prepared 
Mrs.  Spencer's  body  for  the  burial  and  who  washed 
and  dressed  the  little  babe  after  his  baptism  in  his 
mother's  blood,  were  present.  The  same  half-breed 
who  dug  Mrs.  Spencer's  grave  in  1854  dug  the  new 
grave  in  1888.  Several  pioneers  familiar  with  the 
facts  of  the  tragedy  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence  were 
also  present. 

"The  Martyr's  Plot,"  the  last  resting  place  of  these 
devoted  servants  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  is  a  beau- 
tiful spot,  on  the  hillside,  in  the  Presbyterian  Ceme- 
tery at  Walhalla.  It  is  enclosed  by  a  neat  fence,  and 
each  of  these  three  martyr's  graves  is  marked  by  a 
white  stone,  with  an  appropriate  inscription. 

The  Rev.  Alonzo  Barnard  retired  to  Michigan, 
where  he  gave  five  years  of  missionary  toil  to  the 
Chippewas  at  Omene  and  many  other  years  of  helpful 
service  to  the  white  settlers  at  other  points  in  that 
state.  In  1883  he  retired  from  the  work  of  the  active 
ministry  and  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days  with  his 
children. 

He  died  April  14,  1905,  at  Pomona,  Michigan,  at 
the  home  of  his  son.  Dr.  James  Barnard,  in  the  eighty- 
eighth  year  of  his  age.  There  is  a  large  and  flourish- 


AMONG  THE   SIOUX  109 

ing  Episcopal  Indian  church  at  Leech  Lake.  Minne- 
sota, the  scene  of  Mr.  Barnard's  labors  from  1843-52. 
The  rector  is  the  Rev.  Charles  T.  Wright,  a  full- 
blood  Chippewa.  He  is  the  eldest  son  of  that  famous 
chieftain,  Gray  Cloud  and  is  now  himself,  chief  of  all 
the  Chppewas.  "Thus  one  soweth  and  another  reap- 
eth." 


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